THE   CONVERSION    OF    INDIA 


GEORGE   SMITH 


^                                PRINCETON,    N.  J.                                '^' 

i 

1 

Purchased  by  the  Hammill   Missior.ary  Fund. 

1 

1 

1 

BV    3265    .S56    1894 

Smith,    George,    1833-1919. 

The   conversion  of    India 



THE  CONVEESION  OF  INDIA 


BY 
GEO.   SMITH  C.I.E.,   LL.D. 


Henry  Marty n,  Saint  and  Scholar,  First 
Modern  Missionary  to  the  Mohammedans. 
178 1-18 1 2.  With  Portrait,  Map  and 
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man." — The  Christian  Intelligencer, 

♦     ♦    ♦     ♦ 

GRAVES   LECTURES,    1892. 


The  Holy  Spirit  in  Missions.    By 

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"  These  lectures  are  marked  by  great  fervor 
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altar,  a  living  sacrifice  to  missions." — The 
Observer. 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

New  York  Chicago  Toronto 


THE 

CONVEESION  OF  INDIA 

FEOM  pa:n't^nus  to  the  peesent  time 

A.D.    193-1893 


By  GEOEGE  smith,  CLE.,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR  OF  THE  LIVES   OF  CAREY,    OF  HENRY  MARTYN,    OF  DUFF,   OF  WILSON, 
OF  HISLOP,   OF  SOJIERVILLE,   ETC. 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Ae'^difp-e 


FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 
New  York  Chicago         Toronto 

Publishers  of  Evangelical  Literature 


PREFACE 


The  first  of  the  Churches  of  the  Reformation  to  become 
missionary  Avas  that  of  the  IN'etherlelands.  The  Dutch 
colony  of  New  Netherlands,  in  North  America,  lasted 
from  the  year  1609  to  1664.  In  1628  the  first  congre- 
gation was  organised  on  Manhattan  Island,  now  New 
York.  That  was  the  earliest  to  work  among  the  Red 
Indians.  The  organization  which  is  now  known  as  the 
Reformed  Church  in  America,  has  furthermore  established 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  missions  in  British  India,  the 
Arcot  Mission.  In  1888  one  of  the  elders  of  that  Church, 
Mr.  Nathan  F.  Graves,  of  Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  wTote  to  the 
late  L.  W.  V.  B.  Mabon,  D.D.,  Professor  in  its  Theological 
Seminary,  New  Bruns^dck,  N.  J. :  "I  understand  there  is 
no  Seminary  or  Professorship  of  Missions  in  the  United 
States."  The  result  was  the  establishment,  by  that  bene- 
factor, of  a  foundation  like  the  Boyle  Lecture  of  England, 
on  which,  in  1864,  the  late  Dean  Merivale  delivered  in 
the  Chapel  Royal,  Whitehall,  eight  lectures  on  the  Conver- 
sion of  the  Roman  Empire,  and,  in  1865,  eight  lectures  on 
the  Conversion  of  the  Northern  Nations. 

The  present  \ATiter  chose  as  the  subject  of  the  fifth 
course  of  Graves'  lectures, ,  The  Conversion  of  India. 
This  volume  contains  a  somewhat  fuller  treatment  of  that 


Vm  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

question,  historically  and  practically,  than  was  possible  in 
the  six  lectures  which  he  was  appointed  to  deliver  in  the 
first  fortnight  of  October  1893.  But  the  book  is  only  an 
outline  of  the  past  history  and  of  the  process  which  is 
going  on  before  our  eyes  in  India. 

The  previous  courses,  on  the  same  foundation,  were 
delivered,  in  1889,  by  six  distinguished  American  mission- 
aries on  their  own  missions:  in  1890  by  Eev.  John  Hall, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  New  York,  on  Missions  from  Apostolic  to 
Modern  Times ;  in  1891  by  Eev.  Arthur  T.  Pierson,  D.D., 
formerly  of  Philadelphia,  on  The  Divine  Enterprise  of 
Missions;  and  in  1892  by  Rev.  A.  J.  Gordon,  D.D.,  of 
Boston,  on  the  Holy  Spirit  in  Missions. 


Napieb  Road,  Meechiston, 
Edinbuhgh. 


CONTENTS 


I.  Introduction —  taoe 

The  Conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire        ....  1 

The  Conversion  of  the  Northern  Nations   ....  1 

The  Conversion  of  India 2 

The  Abrahamic  and  the  Christian  Centuries       ...  2 

Colonisation  as  a  Missionary  Agency          ...  3 
India  to  he  converted  by  the  two  English-speaking  Peoples       4 

The  historical  Problem  of  Missionary  Christianity     .         .  6 


II.  The  Greek  Attempt — 

Jewish  Traders  to  Western  India     .        • 
The  Monsoon  Discovery  of  Hippalus 
Patriarchates  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch 
Pantsenus,  first  historical  Missionary  to  India 
Theophilus  Indicus  on  Furlough 

Nestorius 

The  Nestorian  Missionaries      .         .        • 

The  Nestorian  Tablet  of  Si-ngan-fu 

A.  Wylie's  Version  of  the  Inscription       , 

Three  Persian  Crosses  of  S,  India     . 

Dr.  Burnell's  Translation  of  the  Inscriptions 

Extent  of  the  Nestorian  Missions     . 

b 


9 
10 
]1 
15 
15 
17 
19 
21 
24 
25 
27 


THE    CONVERSION    OF    INDIA 


Cosmas,  the  Missionary  Merchant 
The  Two  Nestorian  Remnants 


PAGE 

27 
30 


III.  The  Roman  Attempt — 

Saracen  Invasion  of  Christendom,  and  the  Crusades 
Tartar  Invasion  of  Europe,  and  the  Council  of  L3'ons 
First  Envoys  from  the  Pope  and  France  . 

Marco  Polo 

His  Account  of  the  Extension  of  Christianity 
Franciscan  and  Dominican  Missionaries  . 
John  of  Monte  Corvino,  first  to  India 

Jo'.danus 

The  Four  Martyrs  of  Thana     .         .         • 
Prince  Henry  the  Navigator    . 
Christopher  Columbus  seeking  India 
His  relation  to  the  Conversion  of  India    . 
Yasco  da  Gama  lands  at  Calicut 
"  Voyages  of  Joseph  the  Indian  "     . 


IV.  Feancis  Xavier  and    his    Successoes 
Attempt — 

The  Letters  of  Francis  Xavier  . 

Protestant  and  Calvinistic  Influences 

Foundation  of  the  Company  of  Jesus 

Xavier  lands  in  Western  India 

His  "Work  and  his  Methods 

The  Results     . 

His  Character  and  Death 

Bishop  Cotton's  Verdict  . 

Abbe  Dubois'  Criticism    . 


The    Dutch 


CONTENTS 


The  Mission  of  ArcliLishop  Menezes 

The  Malabar  Rites  and  the  Chinese  Rites 

Robert  de  Nobilibus 

Hector  de  Britto 

R.  C.  J.  Beschi 

Jerome  Xavier,  N'ephew  of  Francis 

Akbar's  Toleration  of  Christianity 

Roman  Catholics  in  India  now 

Romanist  Missionary  Controversy 

The  Dutch  Attempt 

Grotius  and  Baldseus 

Ceylon  and  the  Failure  there   . 

The  true  Watchwords  of  the  Missionary 


V.  The  British  East  India  Company's  Work  of  Prepa- 

BATION — 

Queen  Elizabeth's  Position 

Charter  of  the  English  East  India  Company    . 

Sir  Henry  Maine's  Eulogy  of  the  Company 

Subsequent  Charters  :  the  Pax  Evangelica 

From  Queen  Elizabeth  to  the  Queen-Empress  Victoria 

The  Company's  early  Ships,  Factories,  and  Chaplains 

Henry  Lord     .... 

Cromwell,  Oxenden,  and  Masters 

The  First  English  Church 

Calcutta  founded — The  Chaplains 

Clive  and  Warren  Hastings 

Ziegenbalg  begins  the  Coast  Mission 

Carey,  Marshman,  and  Ward  begin  the  Bengal  IMission 

Medical  Missions  begun  . 

Charles  Grant  and  his  Influence 

His  great  Treatise  written  in  1S92 


xu 


THE    CONVERSION    OF    INDIA 


Parliamentary  Debates  ou  the  Charter  of  1813 
Wilberforce  and  Macaulay       .... 
Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  and  Church  Establishment 
Anglo-Indian  Statesmen  as  Christians 
The  East  India  Company's  Humane  Reforms  • 
Vision  of  Converted  India        •        •        •        • 


VI.  Great  Britain's  Attempt — 

Reading  the  Queen's  Proclamation  .        • 
The  Queen's  own  Additions 
Toleration  first  constitutionally  established 
Lord  Canning's  Opinion  and  Action 
Christian  Movement  among  the  Sikh  Sepoys 
Lord  Lawrence's  Minute  of  21st  April  1858 
Neutrality  and  State  Education 
The  Penal  Code  a  Teacher  of  Toleration  . 
Sir  Henry  Sumner  Maine         .         .         .         , 
His  Christian  Marriage  and  Divorce  Act,  186G 
Toleration  yet  to  be  secured     . 
James  Thomason's  Faith  ,         . 

William  Carey  .... 

Donald  Mitchell,  Robert  Nesbit,  and  John  W 
Alexander  Duff  and  John  Anderson 
Lutheran  Attempt  checked  by  Caste        « 
The  Great  Missionary  Societies         .        , 

Bible  Translations 

Immediate  Conversion  and  the  Future 
The  Infant  Church  tested  by  Martyrdom 
Gopinath  Nimdy  and  the  Mutiny    . 
Great  Britain  and  America  roused    . 
India  taken  Possession  of  for  Christ 


ilson 


CONTENTS  XIU 

PAGE 

VII.  The  United  States  of  Ameeioa's  Co-operation— 

Foreign  Missions  the  Foreign  Politics  of  America  .  .  145 
Jonas  Michaelius  and  Joannes  Megapolenais  .  .  •  146 
The  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  John  Eliot  .  .  ,  .147 
Scotland  and  the  Brainerds  .  .  .  .  ,  .148 
The  Prayer  Concert  and  Jonathan  Edwards  .  ,  ,150 
First  Mission  to  the  Punjab  and  John  C.  Lowrie  .  .150 
Adoniram  Judson  .  .  .  .  •  •  .  ,151 
Sir  Henry  Durand's  Eulogy  .  •  •  •  •  ,153 
Ann  H.  and  Sarah  Judson  ,..••,  155 
Hall  and  Nott's  Mission  to  the  Marathas  •  •  •  157 
Governors  of  India  and  American  Missions  .  ,  ,  157 
Alexander  Duffs  Visit  to  America  .  ,  ,  ,  ,159 
Missionary  Army  of  the  United  States  ,  •  •  •  160 
Women  Medical  Missionaries  .         .        •        •        •        ,163 

Mary  Seelye,  M.D 164 

John  Scudder  and  the  Scudder  Family    .        ,         ,         ,164 

Forty  Years'  Work  in  North  Arcot 166 

The  Aim  of  Columbus  being  realised         .        .        •        •     168 


VIII.  The  Methods  of  the  Evangelical  Mission  to  India — 


What  India  is         ,         .        . 
Meditations  of  a  Hindu  Prince         ,        . 

Men  are  more  than  Methods  . 
The  Five  Qualifications  of  Missionaries  . 
Kich  Succession  of  Missionaries  to  India  . 
India  demands  the  Best  Men  and  Women 
The  Lord's  Methods  .... 
John  Wilson  on  preaching  to  Hindus  . 
The  Literary  Method — Bible  Translation 
The  Missionaries  on  their  own  Seven  Methods 


169 
170 
172 

172 
175 
176 

177 
178 
179 
181 


XIV  THE    CONVERSION    OF    INDIA 

The  Revival  of  Interest  in  Foreign  Missions 
The  Educational-Evangelising  Method 
The  Experts  on  this  Method    . 
The  Free  Church  of  Scotland's  Action 
A  Christian  University  for  all  India 
The  Jesuit  Danger  .... 
Dr.  John  Wilson's  "Warning    . 


IX.  The  Results  of  Christian  Missions  to  India — 

Importance  of  Missionary  Geogi'aphy 
The  World's  Population  and  fertile  Area 
Christianity  and  World-Religions    .... 
AVork  of  the  Reformed  Churches  among  Non-Christians 
Asia  stands  out  as  most  clamant       .... 

India  demands  Effort  first 

The  Religions  of  its  Three  Hundred  Millions   .         • 
The  Christians  now  outnumber  the  Sikhs         ,         . 
The  168,000  Europeans  and  80,000  Eurasians  . 
Native  Protestant  Christians  in  India  and  Burma    . 
The  Results  of  Nine  Years  ending  1890  analysed 

Woman's  Work  in  India 

Ceylon    , 

The  People  of  the  Towns  and  Villages 


[PAGE 

184 
185 
185 
189 
191 
193 
194 


195 

196 
197 
198 
199 
199 
201 
201 
202 
204 
205 
205 
207 
209 


The  Church  responsible  for  One-Fifth  of  the  Human  Race  210 
Macleod  Wylie's  Appeal  of  1853  unanswered  .  ,  ,211 
Appeal  of  the  Missionaries  in  India  in  1893      .         .         .212 


X.  The  Prospects  of  the  Conversion  of  India — 

The  Compromise  offered  by  Brahnianism  .         .         .215 

The  Lost  and  the  Victorious  Causes  .         .         .         ,216 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

The  Prospects  brighter  tlian  the  Faitli  and  the  Obedience 

of  the  Church 217 

The  present  Transition    ,        ,        ,        ,        ,        ,        .218 

The  Casteless  Fifty  Millions 218 

Forty  Years'  Progress  among  them 218 

The  Hindu  Hundred  and  Fifty  Millions  .        .        .        .219 

Brahmanism  disintegrating 219 

The  Brahma  Somaj  and  the  Arya  Somaj          ,        ,        .  220 

ITew  Hindu  Modes  of  Opposition 220 

The  New  Islam 221 

Remarkable  Testimony  of  Maulvi  Imad-ud-Din       .         .  222 
Battle   between   Islam  and  Christianity  in   India  now 

fought  out 227 

The  silent  Revolution 228 

The  Unrest  of  the  Conscience  in  India     ....  228 

The  Position  and  Increase  of  IsTative  Christians        .         .  229 

Political  Prospects  of  the  Conversion  of  India  .         .         .  231 

The  Future  Church  of  India 232 

The  Lord  working  with  every  true  Missionary          .        .  233 

XI.  Intercession  and  Thanksgiving — 

Subjects  for  Daily  Missionary  Intercession       .        .        .  235 

Prayer  for  Obedience  to  the  Lord's  Commission        .         .  236 

Prayer  for  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon       ....  236 

Prayer  for  Mohammedans 237 

Prayer  for  China  and  Japan     •••...  237 

Prayer  for  Africa     .*••••..  237 

Prayer  for  Oceania 238 

Prayer  for  the  Conversion  of  Israel 238 

Prayer  for  Inquirers        .......  238 

Prayer  for  Catechumens  .......  239 

Prayer  for  Disciples        .......  239 


XVI  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

PAGE 

Prayer  for  Students         ,        ,        .        ,        ,        ,        .  239 

Prayer  for  the  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America   .  240 

Prayer  for  Missionaries 240 

Prayer  for  the  Quickening  of  Zeal  in  Christians       .        .  241 
Prayer  to  be  used  by  Missionary  Committees  and  Secre- 
taries          241 

Thanksgiving  for  the  Progress  of  the  Gospel   .        •        .243 

Appendix — 

The  Finding  of  the  Nestorian  Tablet       .        •        .        .247 

Index      .••.•-.,,,.251 


Be  these  thy  trophies,  Qneen  of  many  Isles  ! 
On  these  high  Heaven  shall  shed  indulgent  smiles. 
First  by  thy  guardian  voice  to  India  led, 
Shall  Truth  divine  her  tearless  victories  spread ; 
Wide  and  more  wide  the  heaven-born  light  shall  stream 
New  realms  from  thee  shall  catch  the  blissful  theme. 
Unwonted  warmth  the  soften'd  savage  feel. 
Strange  chiefs  admire,  and  turban'd  warriors  kneel, 
The  prostrate  East  submit  her  jewell'd  pride, 
And  swarthy  kings  adore  the  Crucified. 
Fam'd  Ava's  walls  Messiah's  name  shall  own. 
Where  haughty  splendour  guards  the  Burman  throne. 
Thy  hills,  Tibet,  shall  hear,  and  Ceylon's  bowers, 
And  snow-white  waves  that  circle  Peking's  towers, 
Where,  sheath'd  in  sullen  pomp,  the  Tartar  lord 
Forgetful  slumbers  o'er  his  idle  sword  ; 
O'er  all  the  plains  where  barbarous  hordes  afar 
On  panting  steeds  pursue  the  roving  war, 
Soft  notes  of  joy  th'  eternal  gloom  shall  cheer, 
And  smooth  the  terrors  of  the  arctic  year : 
Till  from  the  blazing  line  to  polar  snows, 
Through  varying  realms,  one  tide  of  blessing  flows. 
Then  shall  thy  breath,  celestial  Peace,  unbind 
The  frozen  heart,  and  mingle  mind  with  mind  ; 
With  sudden  youth  shall  slumb'ring  Science  start, 
And  call  to  life  each  long -forgotten  art, 
Eetrace  her  ancient  paths  or  new  explore, 
And  breathe  to  wond'ring  worlds  her  mystic  lore. 

Yes,  it  shall  come  I    E'en  now  my  eyes  behold. 
In  distant  view,  the  wish'd-for  age  unfold. 
Lo,  o'er  the  shadowy  days  that  roll  between, 
A  wand'ring  gleam  foretells  th'  ascending  scene  I 
Oh,  doom'd  victorious  from  thy  wounds  to  rise, 
Dejected  India,  lift  thy  downcast  eyes, 


And  mark  the  hour,  whose  faithful  steps  lor  thee 
Through  Time's  press'd  ranks  bring  on  the  jubilee  1 

Roll  back,  ye  crowded  Years,  your  thick  array, 
Greet  the  glad  hour,  and  give  the  triumph  way. 
Hail  First  and  Greatest,  inexpressive  name, 
Substantial  Wisdom,  God  with  God  the  same  I 
0  Light,  which  shades  of  fiercest  glory  veil, 
0  human  Essence,  mix'd  with  Godhead,  hail  I 
Powers,  Princedoms,  Virtues,  wait  thy  sovereign  call, 
And  but  for  Thee  exists  this  breathing  all. 
Then  shake  thy  heavens,  thou  Mightiest,  and  descend 
Wliile  Truth  and  Peace  Thy  radiant  march  attend, 
"With  wearied  hopes  thy  thousand  empires  groan, 
Our  aching  eyes  demand  thy  promis'd  throne. 
Oh  cheer  the  realms  from  life  and  sunshine  far  I 
Oh  plant  in  Eastern  skies  thy  sevenfold  star  1 

Then,  while  transported  Asia  kneels  around, 
With  ancient  arts  and  long-lost  glories  crown'd, 
Some  happier  Bard,  on  Ganges'  margin  laid, 
Where  playful  bamboos  weave  their  fretted  shade, 
Shall  to  the  strings  a  loftier  tone  impart, 
And  pour  in  rapturous  verse  his  flowing  heart. 
Stamp'd  in  immortal  light  on  future  days, 
Through  all  the  strain  his  country's  joys  shall  blaze  ; 
The  Sanscreet  song  be  warm'd  with  heavenly  fires, 
And  themes  divine  awake  from  Indian  lyres. 

Charles  Ghaut,  M.A,  Fellow  of  Magdalen  College, 
Cambridge,  1805 ;  afterwards  Lord  Glenelg. 


ILLUSTEATIONS 


TO  FACE  PAGE 

Christian  Inscription  of  Si-ngan-fu  in  Chinese  and 

Syriac,  reduced 20 

The  Oldest  Christian  Inscription  in  India — Seventh 

Century 25 


THE  OONVEESION  OF  INDIA 


INTRODUCTION 

The  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  the  world  is  the 
conversion  to  Christ  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  revolu- 
tion occupied  three  centuries  till  it  was  completed, — 
externally,  by  the  coup  d'dtat  of  Constantine,  the  first 
Christian  emperor;  internally,  by  the  Nicene  theology. 
The  immediate  consequent  and  the  richest  result  of  this 
divine  transformation  was  the  conversion  to  Christ  of 
the  Northern  Nations  chiefly  through  Celtic  and  Saxon 
missionaries,  whose  representatives  at  the  present  hour 
are  the  English-speaking  families  of  the  British  Empire 
and  the  United  States  of  America.  This  movement 
required  other  twelve  centuries,  and  ended  in  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  Church,  which,  historically,  finished  the  con- 
version of  Europe.  The  Christian  revolution  and  the 
Church's  reformation  were  confined  to  the  West;  the 
Eastern  and  North  African  Churches  virtually  abandoned 
Asia  and  Africa  to  the  old  heathen  cults  of  Brahmanism, 
Buddhism,  and  demonolatry.  These  Churches  even  became 
so  corrupt  in  life  and  doctrine  that  from  their  errors, 
working  along  with  the  imperfections  of  Judaism,  there 
arose  Mohammedanism,  the  greatest  antagonist  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  present  day. 


2  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

The  Eeformed  Churches  of  Europe  and  America,  after 
a  critical  pause  for  two  centuries  more,  during  which  they 
were  unconsciously  preparing  the  Word  of  God  for  the 
world-races,  and  were  opening  up  new  continents  and 
islands  to  its  sway,  entered  a  century  ago  on  the  third 
spiritual  revolution — the  conversion  of  the  East,  of  India 
and  Southern  Asia,  to  Christ.  The  conversion  of  Africa 
and  the  islands  may  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  the 
missionary  century  on  which  we  are  just  entering.  So 
far  as  Africa  is  under  Mohammedan  influence,  the  evangel- 
ising of  that  continent  is  really  a  part  of  the  greater  prob- 
lem of  Asia.  Following  up  the  two  revolutions  of  the 
eighteen  Christian  centuries,  the  third,  the  conversion 
of  India  in  the  widest  sense  of  that  word,  is  the  first  and 
greatest  mission  to  which  Western  Christendom  is  called. 
The  fitful  and  mistaken  attempts  of  the  Early  Church, 
the  long  neglect  or  cruel  intolerance  that  succeeded  these 
up  to  a  century  ago,  have  made  Brahmanism,  with  its  ofi"- 
spring,  and  Islam  apparently  more  powerful  enemies  of 
Christ  than  even  the  classical  paganism  of  Hellas  and 
Imperial  Rome.  Hinduism  and  Islam  once  fairly  grappled 
with,  the  millions  of  China  and  Japan,  of  Africa  and 
Oceania,  must  follow  willing  captives  in  the  triumphal 
train  of  the  Christ. 

We  stand  to-day  at  a  point  in  the  history  of  the  human 
family  almost  as  many  years  after  the  incarnation  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  His  first  and  greatest  forerunner  lived  before 
that  central  event.  The  nineteen  Abrahamic  centuries 
were  the  period  of  decentralisation,  of  scattering,  of  de- 
spair, but  of  silent  preparation.  The  nineteen  Christian 
centuries  have  been  the  time  of  unification,  of  elevation, 
of  hope.  Then  the  warring  races  and  jarring  civilisations, 
preying  upon  each  other,  groped  about  the  old  world 
around  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Mediterranean  Sea, 
knowing  little  of  their  home  or  of  physical  law.  Now, 
and  especially  in  the  last  century,  men  have  been  taught 
by  Christ  the  unity  of  their  destiny  in  Him,  and  their 
consequent  responsibility  to  each  other.  Science  has 
revealed  and  almost  surveyed  the  whole  world,  old  and 


INTRODUCTION  3 

new.  Colonisation  has  at  last,  after  the  struggles  and  the 
strifes  of  six  thousand  years,  taken  possession  of  the 
planet.  One  language,  the  English,  transcending  even 
the  limit's  of  races  and  nations  and  governments,  as  the 
Greek  never  did,  has  become  the  ever-growing  depository 
of  the  highest  civilisation  and  the  fruitful  medium  of  its 
unifying  extension.  The  one  faith  of  Christ  Jesus,  the 
Son  of  Man,  who  said  that  He  came  to  seek  and  to  save 
the  lost,  prompting  science,  guiding  colonisation,  and  using 
English  speech,  is  working  out  the  realisation  of  the  unity 
of  mankind  by  the  very  modern  enterprise  of  Foreign 
Missions.^ 

In  this  historical  evolution  of  the  human  family  through 
Christianity,  the  oldest,  the  most  wonderful,  and  still  the 
most  fruitful  and  necessary  portion,  is  that  which  is  con- 
cerned with  India  and  Southern  Asia.  In  working  out 
this  process  the  Christians  of  the  United  States  of  America 
are  allied  and  co-operate  with  those  of  the  British  Empire 
on  almost  equal  terms.  We  together,  100  millions  strong, 
in  Europe  and  America,  with  the  same  origin,  the  same 
history,  the  same  tongue,  the  same  literature,  the  same 
faith,  and  therefore  the  same  Christ-commanded  duty  and 
assured  hope,  are  set  over  or  over  against  the  300  millions 
of  India  in  the  providence  of  God.  Our  fathers,  theirs 
and  ours,  dwelt  together  four  thousand  years  ago  when 

^  In  1852  David  Livingstone,  having  explored  as  a  medical  mission- 
ary north  to  the  Upper  Zambesi,  wrote  thus  to  his  directors — "You 
will  see  by  the  accompanying  sketch-map  what  an  immense  region 
God  in  His  grace  has  opened  up."  Again — "  I  never  anticipated  fame 
from  the  discovery  of  the  lake  (Is'gami).  I  cared  very  little  about  it ; 
but  the  sight  of  the  rivers  and  countries  beyond,  all  densely  populated, 
awakened  many  and  enthusiastic  feelings.  Consider  the  multitudes 
that  in  the  providence  of  God  have  been  brought  to  light ;  the  prob- 
ability that  in  our  efforts  to  evangelise  we  shall  put  a  stop  to  the 
slave  trade  in  a  large  region,  and  by  means  of  the  highway  into  the 
north  which  we  have  discovered,  bring  unknown  nations  into  the 
sympathies  of  the  Christian  world."  The  result  is  the  difference 
between  the  Africa  of  1853  and  1893,  and  the  possibilities,  amounting 
to  certainties,  of  the  future  of  the  whole  African  peoples.  The  process 
is  going  on  before  our  eyes. 


4  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

the  first  missionary  call  from  "  the  God  of  Glory  "  fell  on 
the  ears  of  Abraham  in  the  ancestral  land,  and  the  first 
whisper  of  the  missionary  covenant  was  heard  by  "  the 
father  of  a  multitude."  How  has  it  come  about  that  we 
have  had  committed  to  us  so  vast  a  task  which  we  did 
not  consciously  seek,  so  splendid  a  trust  from  which  again 
and  again  we  have  shrunk,  and  which  sometimes  even  still 
we  resent?  What  has  been  the  attitude  and  what  the 
action  of  the  Christian  Church  to  the  peoples  of  India  ? 

Since  the  first  application  of  the  comparative  method 
of  Philology  to  early  history  fifty  years  ago,  no  well- 
established  advance  has  been  made  on  the  conclusion 
that,  from  the  great  plateau  of  Iran,  between  the  Persian 
Gulf  and  the  Caspian  Sea,  the  Indo-European  race,  who 
called  themselves  Aryan  or  "  noble,"  scattered  south-east 
to  the  Indus  and  north-west  to  Europe,  and  ultimately  to 
America.^ 

Of  all  the  teachings  of  Science  and  of  History  there  is 
none  so  important  to  the  human  race,  and  especially  to 
the  British  and  American  peoples,  as  this  evolution  of 
Providence  during  the  past  four  thousand  years.  It  is 
the  racial,  the  historical,  the  divine  root  of  all  Foreign 
Missions,  alike  in  their  spiritual  and  their  civilising  aspects. 
The  Turanian  is  succeeded  by  the  Semitic,  and  both  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  Aryan  or  Indo-European.  Of  the 
Aryans,  the  elder  branches,  Sanskritic  and  Persic,  find  a 
home  in  North  India,  and  there  from  the  natm-e-worship 

^  See  pp.  8-10  of  Study  of  Comparative  Gramviar,  by  George  Smith, 
1854.  In  liis  "  Essay  on  the  Geogi-apliy  of  tlie  Valley  of  the  Oxus" 
(1872),  prefixed  to  Captain  John  Wood's  Journey  to  the  Source  of  the 
River  Oxus,  the  late  Sir  Henry  Yule  inclines  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
sacred  narrative  of  Genesis,  which  finds  the  Adamic  paradise  in  the 
heart  of  Asia  which  gives  birth  to  the  Oxus,  "the  great  physical  and 
political  watershed  of  the  Old  Continent."  The  high  tableland  of 
Pamir  nearly  realises  the  old  pictures  of  Eden,  which  figure  the  four 
rivers  as  literally  diverging  from  a  central  lake  to  the  four  quarters 
of  the  earth, — the  Oxus  towards  Europe,  the  Yarkand  river  to  the  verge 
of  China,  the  Jaxartes  to  the  north-east,  and  the  Indus  to  the  south- 
west. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

of  their  Vedic  literature  develop  the  Brahmanical  system 
of  Pantheism  and  caste  and  the  Puranic  idolatry.  They 
utterly  fail.  The  younger  branches  alone  continue  the 
slow  work  of  preparation,  first  in  the  sunny  lands  of 
Greece  and  Italy,  then  in  the  Teutonic  forests  of  Central 
Europe,  in  the  Scandinavian  snows  of  the  north,  and  the 
Celtic  islands  of  the  far  west.  Receiving  the  doctrine  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  men,  first 
the  Celts  through  Patrick  and  Columba,  and  then  the 
Saxons  through  Boniface,  become  missionaries  to  Germany. 
Scandinavia  and  all  Europe,  escaping  the  humanistic  heresy 
of  Arius,  become  Christian.  But  still  Christendom  itself 
needs  at  once  reformation  and  expansion  westward.  The 
first  is  given  to  it  by  Wiclif  and  Luther,  especially  in  the 
form  of  the  Word  of  God  in  the  vernaculars  of  the  people. 
The  expansion  begins  at  the  same  time  when,  seeking  for 
India,  Christopher  Columbus  first  finds  America,  and  the 
blind  absolutism  of  English  statesmanship  three  hundred 
years  after  results  in  the  independence  of  the  United 
States. 

Thus  have  the  English-speaking  Aryans  been  trained 
to  become  the  rulers  of  India  and  the  evangelisers  of 
Asia.  The  younger,  of  Great  Britain  and  America,  have 
been  prepared  to  serve  the  elder,  of  India,  in  the  highest 
ministry  of  sacrifice,  that  through  them  the  Hindus, 
Parsees,  and  Mohammedans  may  now  receive  Christ. 
Upon  us,  as  upon  all  Christians,  there  rests  the  command 
to  go  and  teach  all  nations.  But  the  teaching  of  India  is 
pre-eminently  the  first  and  the  greatest  duty  of  the  English- 
speaking  Aryans,  who  have  been  chosen  as  the  servants  of 
Jehovah  for  this  end  as  truly  as  the  great  Cyrus  was  in 
the  Old  Testament,  that  the  Jews  might  fulfil  their  pre- 
paratory mission  to  the  world,  and  might  in  their  turn 
bring  in  the  fulness  of  the  nations.  Through  Brahmanism 
the  Hindus  have  been  missionaries  of  evil  to  the  aboriginal 
people  of  India,  whose  Dra vidian  demon-worship  is  not  so 
far  from  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  as  its  caste-bound  philo- 
sophy and  ritual.  Through  Buddhism  the  Hindus  were 
the  most  enthusiastic   and  successful  missionaries    of    a 


6  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

pantheistic  nihilism  in  faith  and  morals  to  the  millions  of 
China  and  Tibet,  Burma  and  Ceylon.  Thus  the  duty  laid 
upon  us  to  seek  and  save  India  first  or  above  all  regions, 
is  accompanied  by  the  assurance  that  when  we  open  the 
door  of  Brahmanism  to  Christ  we  open  it  to  the  millions 
of  China  and  Japan,  of  the  Eastern  Peninsula  and  Ceylon. 
India  is  the  key  to  all  South  and  Central  Asia.  The 
complete  conquest  of  the  Brahman  and  the  Mohammedan 
of  India  by  the  Cross  will  be  to  all  Asia  what  the 
submission  of  Constantine  was  to  the  Eoman  Empire — 
in  hoc  signo  vincimus. 

The  historical  or  providential  problem  of  missionary 
Christianity — the  only  true  Christianity — to  the  outlines 
of  the  solution  of  which  these  Lectures  are  devoted,  is  to 
bring  into  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  the  elder  branch 
of  the  great  Indo-European  family  in  India  and  Southern 
Asia.  Daniel's  vision  of  the  Four  Empires  presented  the 
universal  problem,  of  which  the  Indian  is  the  most  im- 
portant element  after  the  European,  under  the  figure  of  a 
colossal  image,  its  four  parts  successively  destroyed  by 
what  appeared  to  be  a  little  stone  cut  out  of  the  moun- 
tain without  hands.  The  gold  of  Chaldaea  and  the  silver 
of  Medo-Persia  had  given  place  to  the  brass  of  Greece 
under  Alexander  and  his  successors,  and  that  in  turn  was 
at  once  yielding  to  and  subduing  the  iron  empire  of  Eome, 
when,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  Jesus  Christ  was  enrolled  in 
the  census  taken  under  the  decree  of  Csesar  Augustus. 
Then  it  was  that  there  began  the  training  of  the  future 
English-speaking  peoples  of  the  West  to  fit  them  for  the 
mightiest  work  in  their  history,  the  Christianising  of 
India  and  the  dark  races.  If  we  prolong  the  vision  of 
Daniel  beyond  the  close  of  the  iron  empire,  so  distant 
from  the  prophet,  we  shall  best  represent  the  great 
missionary  evolution,  which  is  to  end  in  the  conversion 
of  India  to  Christ  as  its  fullest  triumph,  as  a  drama  in 
these  acts : 

I.  The  Greek  Attempt,  through  the  Nestorians,  whose 
metaphysical  religion  misrepresented  Christ. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

n.  The  Roman  Attempt,  through  the  Jesuits,  Fran- 
ciscans, and  Dominicans,  whose  compromise  with 
heathenism  resulted  in  the  defeat,  admitted  by 
Abbe  Dubois,  in  1815. 

in.  The  Dutch  Attempt,  whose  nominal  converts 
vanished  with  the  extinction  of  their  power  in 
India  and  Ceylon. 

IV.  The  British  East  India  Company's  Work  of 
Preparation,  and  its  extinction  in  1858. 

Y.  Great  Britain's  Attempt  through  the  Evangelical 
Societies  and  Churches  since  1793,  and  especially 
since  1858. 

VI.  The  United  States  of  America's  Co-operation 
in  the  English-speaking  Mission. 

VII.  The  Methods  of  the  Evangelical  Mission  to 
India. 

VIII.  The  Results  and  the  Prospects  of  Christian 
Missions  to  India  and  Southern  Asla.. 


THE   GREEK   ATTEMPT 

^'Beware  lest  any  inan  spoil  you  through philosojphy  and  vain  deceit, 
after  the  tradition  of  men,  after  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  and  not  after 
Christ.  For  in  llivi  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  lodily.  And 
ye  are  complete  in  Him." — Col.  ii.  8-10. 

India,  like  the  Britain  of  our  Celtic  and  savage  fore- 
fathers, first  received  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  through 
commerce  and  colonisation,  which  are  still  the  most  rapid 
and  wide-spreading  carriers  of  divine  truth.  At  the  close 
of  the  first  Christian  century,  when  the  Phoenicians  were 
trafficking  in  Cornwall  and  Wales,  and  in  India  and  Ceylon, 
"  those  who  had  seen  the  apostles,"  to  use  the  words  of 
Photius,  were  beginning  to  teach  the  nations  alike  of 
England  and  of  the  Indias,  and  to  found  Churches  in  both 
regions.  The  Jews,  as  widely  dispersed  as  their  Tyrian 
neighbours,  with  whom  they  had  been  partners  since  the 
days  of  Solomon  and  Hiram,  and  ever  closely  connected 
with  Jerusalem,  used  the  facilities  of  communication  given 
by  the  Greek  tongue  and  the  Eoman  order  to  carry  first 
their  own  Monotheism  and  Messianic  hopes,  and  then  the 
good  news  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  promised  One,  where- 
ever  trade  penetrated.  That  apostolic  Christianity  was 
carried  to  what  we  now  call  India,  and  especially  to  its 
western  coast  between  Barygaza  or  Broach,  north  of  the 
modern  island  of  Bombay,  and  Cranganor  above  Cape 
Comorin,  by  Jews,  is  a  fact  of  intense  spiritual  interest. 
Seventeen  years  after  the  atonement,  the  resurrection, 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  9 

and  the  ascension  of  our  Lord,  when  He  had  repeated  His 
last  charge  to  every  believing  disciple  in  all  ages,  the  first 
great  geographical  and  scientific  discovery  was  made  to 
which  Christian  missions  owe  their  progress.  In  the  year 
50  A.D.  the  pilot  Hippalus  revealed  the  semi-annual  reversal 
of  the  wind  system  of  the  Indian  Ocean  which  is  called  by 
the  Arabic  word  for  "a  season,"  moussin  or  monsoon. 
Hippalus  sailed  right  across  the  open  sea  from  the  Arabian 
promontory  of  Syagros  or  Cape  Fartask  to  Barygaza, 
Kalliena,  Muziris  or  Mangalor,  and  Nelkynda  or  Cannanor, 
on  the  Malabar  coast.  The  discovery  was  as  momentous 
for  India  as  the  application  of  the  constant  nature  of  the 
trade  winds  by  Columbus  more  than  fourteen  centuries 
afterwards  proved  to  be,  in  the  revealing  of  America.  Up 
to  the  time  of  Hippalus  the  gold  and  spice  and  gem  and 
cloth  trade  of  India  had  been  carried  by  land  at  least  as 
far  as  the  Persian  Gulf ;  and  even  the  Jews,  such  as  those 
who  went  to  Jerusalem  at  the  Pentecostal  feast,  must  have 
had  their  depots  on  the  Malabar  coast  and  Ceylon.  But 
a  knowledge  of  the  regularity  of  the  trade  winds  gave  the 
command  of  the  trade  thenceforth  to  the  fleets  of  Egypt. 
Gradually  Jud?eo- Christian  disciples,  who  had  received 
the  arrow  of  conviction  at  Pentecost,  and  others  who  had 
been  scattered  abroad  on  the  death  of  Stephen,  found 
their  Avay  to  the  trading  settlements  of  Yfest  and  South 
India,  according  to  their  own  traditions. 

"When  the  great  catastrophe  came  to  w^hich  Christ  had 
in  vain  pointed  the  Jews  of  His  day,  and  which  His  own 
apostles  expected  to  be  the  end  of  the  age — the  fall  of 
Jerusalem — the  trading  settlements  of  India  formed  refuges 
for  not  a  few  of  the  finally  dispersed  Jews.  The  tradi- 
tions of  the  thirteen  thousand  Jews  who  still  worship  the 
God  of  their  fathers  chiefly  at  Bombay  and  Cochin,  are 
recorded  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  as  handed  down  to  them, 
and  partly  confirmed  by  titles  engraved  on  two  sides  of 
a  copper  plate  deposited  by  Claudius  Buchanan  in  the 
University  Library  of  Cambridge.  The  scroll  of  the 
White  Jews  of  Cochin  tljus  begins — "After  the  Second 
Temple  was  destroyed  (which  may  God  speedily  rebuild !) 


10  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

our  fathers,  dreading  the  conqueror's  wrath,  departed  from 
Jerusalem,  a  numerous  body  of  men,  women,  priests,  and 
Levites,  and  came  into  this  land."  At  that  time,  70  A.D., 
South  India  was,  and  continued  almost  till  the  disastrous 
arrival  of  the  Portuguese  by  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to 
be,  divided  among  independent  native  rulers,  such  as  those 
of  Pandya  (Madura  and  Tinnevelli),  Chola,  Chera  (Coim- 
bator  and  Salem),  and  Kerala  (Malabar), — men  generally 
favourable  to  strangers  who  sought  their  protection  and 
enriched  them  by  trade.  In  the  providence  of  God  this 
Indian  land  seemed  prepared  to  be  an  early  nursery  first 
of  Old  Testament  psalm  and  prophecy,  and  then  of  primi- 
tive Christianity.  All  through  the  eighteen  centuries 
since,  Christianity  and  Judaism  have  found  a  home  in  the 
midst  of  the  Brahmanical  castes  of  Hinduism  and  the 
devil- worshipping  aborigines,  who  never  showed  the  in- 
tolerance of  Eomanist  Portugal  or  the  fanaticism  of  the 
Mohammedan  rule  of  Aurangzeb  and  Tipu.  At  this  day 
a  fourth  of  the  population  of  the  native  state  of  Cochin 
consists  of  Nazarani  or  Christian  descendants  of  the 
apostolic  and  the  Nestorian  missionaries. 

The  patriarchates  of  Alexandria  and  of  Antioch,  from 
the  former  of  which  cities  men  were  converted  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  while  at  the  latter  they  were  first  called 
Christians,  became  successively  the  great  missionary 
centres  ^  for  Asia  as  well  as  North  Africa.  At  each, 
through  Ptolemy  and  Seleucus,  the  civilising  energy  of 
the  great  Alexander,  on  his  return  from  the  Punjab  and 
Sindh  through  Baloochistan  and  by  the  Persian  Gulf,  had 
become  concentrated  and  perpetuated.  Alexandria  was 
the  first  to  send  a  Christian  missionary  to  India,  whose 
name  and  character  we  know.  Antioch  followed,  as  the 
seat  of  the  Nestorian  missionaries,  to  far  Cathay  as  well 
as  more  distant  Malabar. 

^  In  his  Old  Sijriac  Element  in  the  Text  of  Codex  Bezce  (1893),  Mr. 
F.  H.  Chase,  B.D.,  shows  that  that  most  valuable  of  the  ancient 
manuscripts  on  which  Biblical  criticism  rests,  had  its  origin  at  Antioch, 
as  well  as  similar  Syriacised  texts, — a  striking  fact  in  the  early  history 
of  Christian  missions. 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  11 

Pantasnus,  Greek  Stoic  and  Principal  of  the  Christian 
College  of  Alexandria,  was  the  first  historical  missionary 
of  Christ  to  the  peoples  of  India.  The  traditions  of  local 
Churches  claim  Peter  or  Thomas  or  Bartholomew  as  their 
apostolic  founder.  But  apart  from  the  natural  desire  of 
the  early  Christians  thus  to  link  their  origin  with  the 
apostles,  the  traditions  can  all  be  accounted  for  so  far  as 
India  is  concerned,  when  we  remember  the  vagueness 
with  which  the  name  India  was  used  from  Homer  to 
Columbus,  and  even  sometimes  in  the  present  day.  The 
India  which  captivated  the  imagination  and  excited  the 
desire  of  classical  and  mediaeval  times  was  that  half  of  the 
world  which  stretches  from  the  east  coast  of  Africa  east- 
ward to  Japan.  It  consisted  of,  or  rather  the  geographical 
idea  contained,  the  Middle,  the  Greater,  and  the  Lesser 
Indias.  Ethiopia  and  South  Arabia,  with  Sokotra,  Zanzi- 
bar, and  the  other  islands  down  to  Madagascar,  all 
formed  Middle  India.  India  proper  and  Ceylon,  including 
much  of  what  is  now  the  Chinese  Empire,  was  the  Greater 
India.  The  Lesser  or  Farther  India  was  composed  of  the 
Golden  Peninsula  of  Malacca,  and  of  the  thousand  spice 
islands  which  form  a  bridge  almost  to  Japan.  Marco 
Polo's  personal  travels  gave  consolidation  to  the  geography 
of  Aristotle,  and  led  Columbus  to  his  fruitful  determina- 
tion to  find  India  by  sailing  westward  to  its  Japanese 
extremity,  and  converting  its  idol-worshippers  to  Christ. 
This  vast  and  magnificent  India  was  washed  by  one  Eastern 
Ocean,  the  periodicity  of  the  monsoons  and  currents  of 
which  early  came  to  be  understood  and  used  with  wonder- 
ful skill.  That  ocean  was  to  the  eastern  half  of  the 
ancient  world  what  the  Mediterranean  was  to  the  western. 
Traders  and  missionaries  sailed  its  waters.  It  was  to  the 
Greater  India,  the  India  of  us  moderns,  that  Pantsenus 
went,  called  thereto,  like  Paul  a  century  before  him  to 
Macedonia  and  Malta,  to  Spain  and  Italy,  in  Mediterranean 
ships.  What  sort  of  a  man  was  this  whose  name  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  golden  book  of  Christ's  missionaries 
to  India,  as  Patrick's  and  Columba's  among  our  British 
missionary  forefathers  ? 


12  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

Thanks  to  his  own  great  disciples,  Clement  and  Origen, 
to  Jerome  also  and  the  historian  Eusebius,  we  have  little 
difficulty  in  realising  the  training,  the  character,  and  the 
influence  of  Pantasnus,  though  none  of  his  writings  save 
a  few  pregnant  extracts  have  survived.  Is  it  not  possible 
that  some  of  his  commentaries  may  yet  be  discovered  in 
the  Fayum  of  Egypt,  which  is  proving  so  fertile  in  such 
treasures  ?  Pantsenus  first  comes  before  us  as  the  earliest 
example  of  a  Greek  scholar  who  brought  his  philosophy 
to  the  feet  of  Christ,  and  humbly  used  his  learning  in  the 
service  of  the  Cross.  Born  in  Athens,  unless  Clement's 
admiring  reference  to  his  industry  and  fertility  as  "  the 
Sicilian  bee"  points  to  Sicily  as  the  home  of  his  youth, 
Pantsenus  was  of  the  Stoic  school,  though,  with  the 
eclecticism  of  his  age,  he  mastered  the  Platonism  of  Pytha- 
goras. The  one  taught  him  "  righteousness  together  with 
godly  knowledge."  According  to  Clement,  the  other  gave 
him  juster  conceptions  of  Cod  and  of  spiritual  things. 
Both  the  duty  and  the  faith  thus  imperfectly  learned 
found  their  sanction  and  their  completion  in  the  Christ  of 
the  evangelists,  in  the  testimony  of  Jesus,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  the  Old  Testament,  of  the  psalmists,  and  the 
prophets.  Thus,  as  a  learned  thinker  and  master  of  the 
non-Christian  philosophy  of  his  day,  Pantcenus  became 
fitted  to  be  the  first  missionary  to  the  Brahmans  and  the 
Buddhists,  who  at  that  time  had  most  fully  developed 
their  systems.  He  was  the  appropriate  predecessor  of 
Carey  and  Martyn,  of  Duff  and  Wilson,  of  French  and 
Caldwell,  of  Judson  and  Scudder.  It  does  not  appear 
whether  Pantsenus  was  called  from  Paganism  by  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  as  was  Clement,  who  after  studying 
under  the  greatest  Christian  teachers  in  Greece  and  Syria 
and  Italy,  settled  in  Egypt,  because  he  there  met  with 
Pantasnus,  described  by  him  as  "  a  very  great  Gnosticus, 
who  had  penetrated  most  profoundly  into  the  spirit  of 
Scripture." 

To  consecrated  learning  and  the  mastery  of  his  op- 
ponents' system  of  error,  Pantaenus  added  the  second 
essential  qualification  of  a  missionary  to  the  Brahmans — 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  13 

he  was  the  greatest  teacher  of  his  age,  and  exercised  a 
fascination  over  the  minds  of  his  students.  Appointed 
by  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria  sole  catechist  of  the  School 
of  the  Catechumens,  which  had  been  established  for  the 
instruction  of  the  heathen  in  the  facts  and  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity,  Pantsenus  made  the  Didaskaleion  not  only 
the  nursery  of  men  like  Clement  and  Origen,  but  the 
training  school  of  missionaries  who  went  forth  over  North 
Africa,  Ethiopia,  Yemen,  and  Southern  Asia.  Of  that 
college  he  was  the  famous  principal  certainly  in  or  before 
the  year  180  A.D.,  according  to  Eusebius.  Fronted  at  that 
time  by  the  great  heathen  institution,  the  Serapeum,  as  the 
modern  missionary  colleges  are  in  the  Egypt  of  this  day 
by  the  Azhar  Madrissa,  and  in  India  by  the  Government, 
the  Hindu,  and  the  Mohammedan  colleges,  the  truth  taught 
by  Pantsenus  in  time  swept  error  away.  The  Greek 
Platonist,  Dion  Chrysostom,  who  died  not  long  before  the 
birth  of  Pantaenus,  writes  of  "  Ethiopians,  Arabians,  Bactri- 
ans,  Scythians,  Persians,  and  Indians  flocking  to  Alexandria." 
Even  then  the  third  of  the  three  qualifications  essential  to  a 
successful  missionary  of  Christ  was  possessed  by  Pantsenus 
in  an  unusual  degree — he  knew  and  he  loved  to  expound 
the  Word  of  God.  This,  indeed,  came  to  take  precedence 
of  his  Christian  philosophy  and  to  afford  the  vehicle  for 
his  learning.  We  find  Eusebius,  while  he  describes  Clement 
as  "  a  most  excellent  teacher  and  shining  light  of  Christian 
philosophy,"  declaring  that  Pantsenus  "  was  distinguished 
as  an  expositor  of  the  Word  of  God."  In  another  place 
the  same  historian  discriminates  the  latter  as  one  who,  in 
his  literary  works,  "  interpreted  the  treasures  of  the  divine 
dogmas,"  while  Jerome  records  that  he  left  many  com- 
mentaries   on   the    Scriptures.       Truly   this   missionary^ 

^  Of  Church  historians  Neander,  as  usual,  and  the  eloquent  French 
senator  and  pastor,  Dr.  E.  de  Pressense,  have  alone  done  justice  to 
Pantsenus,  of  whose  mission  the  latter  writes  : — "  Happy  is  the  age  in 
which  scientific  theology  is  not  severed  from  active  and  militant  piety, 
in  which  a  man  gave  his  whole  self  to  the  cause  and  heroically  carried 
into  practice  that  which  he  eloquently  taught  in  theory  "  (vol.  ii.  p. 
271,  cap.  ii.  of  second  book  of  The  Earlier  Years  of  Christianity). 


14  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

had  his  message  in  the  life-giving  oracles  of  God  with 
their  self  -  evidencing  power,  as  few  of  his  later  suc- 
cessors had  till  Wiclif  and  Luther  gave  the  peoples  of 
Christendom  the  Scriptures  in  their  own  tongues,  and 
Carey  began  to  do  the  same  for  the  races  of  Southern 
Asia. 

At  some  time  between  the  years  180  and  190  the 
Bishop  of  Alexandria  received  an  appeal  from  the  Chris- 
tians in  India  to  send  them  a  missionary.  Probably  the 
applicants  were  students  of  the  catechetical  school.  What 
so  natural  as  that  Pantsenus,  himself  a  presbyter,  whom 
long  after,  writing  in  the  seventh  century,  Anastasius  of 
Sinai  describes  as  "priest  of  the  Church  of  the  Alex- 
andrians," should  be  chosen  ?  In  one  of  his  epistles  Jerome 
writes  that  "  Pantsenus  was  sent  to  India  that  he  might 
preach  Christ  among  the  Brahmans."  He  would  be  the 
less  unwilling  to  go  that  Clement  was  ready  to  take  his 
place  during  his  absence.  He  would  be  the  more  eager 
to  go  that  he  might  give  to  the  churches  founded  by  Jewish 
Hellenists  fuller  instruction  in  the  new  canonical  writings, 
that  he  might  make  them  missionary  lights  to  all  around, 
and  that  he  might  bring  back  with  him  new  facts  and 
followers  whereby  to  quicken  the  zeal  of  the  Alexandrian 
Church.  We  can  picture  him  in  those  days  sailing  up 
the  Nile  to  Coptos,  and  thence  on  an  eleven  days'  journey 
crossing  the  Thebaid,  then  a  highway  now  a  desert, 
to  the  great  port  of  Berenice,  at  which  the  treasures  of 
India  were  received  from  the  traders.  Taking  ship  down 
the  Eed  Sea  at  the  beginning  of  September,  to  catch  the 
trade  winds,  looking  in  on  the  Christians  at  Aden,  tarrying 
a  little  to  refit  with  those  at  Sokotra,  and  then  spread- 
ing his  sails  for  the  south-west  monsoon  to  carry  him 
quickly,  he  would  reach  the  coast  of  Malabar  in  forty 
days.  How  long  he  was  there,  how  far  inland  he  travelled, 
and  when  he  returned,  we  know  not.  This  characteristic 
fact,  however,  we  have,  that  he  found  among  them  the 
Hebrew  or  Aramaic  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  which  formed 
the  basis  of  our  Greek  evangel,  said  to  have  been  taken 
to   them   by  the   apostle   Bei^rtholomew.     All   that   this 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  15 

apostolic  reference  means  is  that  the  Jewish  Christians 
in  India  were  a  colony  from  some  place  where  Bartholomew 
had  founded  the  Christian  Church  after  Stephen's  martyr- 
dom. Pantaenus  went  back  to  Alexandria,  relieved 
Clement,  and  continued  to  preside  over  the  College  of  the 
Catechumens,  probably  through  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
Severus,  or  till  211  a.d.  Jerome  places  him  even  in  the 
reign  of  his  successor,  and  the  Eoman  Martyrology  com- 
memorates the  first  great  missionary  to  India  on  the  7th 
day  of  July  every  year. 

Of  the  apostolic  or  earliest  Christians  in  the  Indian 
region  we  hear  nothing  for  a  century  till  about  the  timo 
that  Constantine  established  the  Church.  Then,  according 
to  the  learned  Arian  historian,  Philostorgius,  there  arrived 
in  Europe  from  the  island  Diu  or  Sokotra  one  whom  we 
would  now  describe  as  a  missionary  on  furlough,  Theophilus 
surnamed  Indicus.  From  his  native  island  he  had  visited 
India  itself,  where  he  found  Christianity  already  planted. 
The  statement  that  he  "  had  only  to  correct  certain  things 
there  "  introduces  us  to  the  next  missionary  name  of  Nes- 
torius.  Evidently  the  Christian  Churches  of  India  had 
always  looked  to  Persia  as  their  origin.  At  the  Council 
of  Nicsea  in  325,  Johannes,  the  Metropolitan  of  Persia, 
signed  also  as  "of  the  Great  India."  This  probably 
implied  little  more  than  an  episcopal  claim  to  what  had 
always,  as  in  the  Book  of  Esther,  been  considered  a  pro- 
vince of  the  Persian  empire.  But  it  shows,  thus  early, 
the  ecclesiastical  connection  between  Persia  and  India 
historically.     So  early  as  334  Merv  was  an  episcopal  see. 

The  scene  now  shifts  from  Alexandria  to  Antioch,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  third  to  that  of  the  fifth  century. 
The  subjective,  intuitive  attitude  of  the  Alexandrian  writers 
to  the  person  of  Christ,  which  while  dwelling  on  his 
Divinity  ended  in  the  Monophysite  view,  has  given  place  to 
the  rationalising  of  the  Antiochene  school,  which,  exalting 
the  human  side  of  the  Lord,  finally  taught  His  double  per- 
sonality. The  heresy  of  Arius  had  meanwhile  arisen. 
While  Pant^enus  stands  at  the  head  of  the  evangelicalism 
which  has  ever  since  carried  to  Asia  the  missionary  message 


16  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

that  God  is  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  Nes- 
torius  is  tlie  representative  of  those  who  preach  a  Christ 
less  than  Divine,  and  who  have  therefore  ever  failed  to 
convert  mankind.  Nestorianism  became  such  a  compro- 
mise with  heathenism  as  led  to  Mohammed's  teaching ;  it 
supplanted  in  India  the  apostolic  Churches  confirmed  by 
Pantaenus,  and  it  has  ever  since  fossilised  the  Syrian 
Church  there  while  making  it  powerless  against  the 
persecutions  of  Portuguese  Catholicism.  This  fact 
of  compromise  must  be  remembered  when  we  proceed 
to  look  at  the  otherwise  bright  missionary  progress 
of  Nestorian  Christianity  in  Asia,  Central,  East,  and 
South. 

Let  us  take  our  stand  in  the  city  of  Mesopotamian 
Edessa,  to  which  Seleucus  gave  the  name  of  the  original 
seat  of  the  Macedonian  race  that  had  conquered  the  world 
up  to  the  Indus  and  the  Jumna.  There,  on  a  northern 
affluent  of  the  Euphrates,  Eusebius  the  historian  found  a 
letter  in  the  Syriac  language,  which  the  Church  believed 
to  have  been  written  to  its  ruler  Abgar  by  Christ  Him- 
self. However  spurious  the  correspondence,  the  story 
marks  the  spot  as  the  earliest  region  to  receive  the 
light  of  the  gospel.  It  became  gradually  the  greatest 
ecclesiastical  school  in  Asia,  rivalling  that  of  Alexandria 
for  the  West,  and  ultimately  supplanting  it.  It  was  to 
Edessa  that  Miesrob,  the  greatest  Armenian  Father  and 
translator  of  the  first  complete  vernacular  version  of  the 
Bible  in  410,  sent  Moses  Chorenensis  and  his  ablest  followers. 
To  Edessa  students  flocked  from  all  Asiatic  Christendom. 
When  Nestorius  and  Cyril,  like  Arius  and  Athanasius,  had 
buried  their  controversy  in  the  grave,  and  the  Council  of 
Ephesus  was  over,  the  conflict  broke  out  afresh  in  Edessa 
and  the  neighbouring  school  of  Nisibis.  It  ended  in  the 
year  499  m  the  synod  which  fully  accepted  the  Nestorian 
teaching,  and  added  to  that  the  right  of  the  bishops  and 
priests  to  marry.  This  return  to  apostolic  liberty  and 
example  removed  one  great  objection  of  the  Zoroastrian 
fire -worshippers  to  the  Christian  Church.  Nestorian 
Christianity  became  popular  in  Persia,  became  ready  to 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  17 

influence  and  conciliate  the  new  enemy  which  was  about 
to  burst  forth  from  the  sands  of  Arabia,  to  prove  the 
scourge  of  the  mediaeval  world  and  the  tyrant  of  Asia  to 
the  present  century.  Like  the  Arian  Ulfilas,  however, 
and  the  Greek  Church  to  this  day,  the  Nestorian 
missionary  Church,  under  the  old  impulse  of  Theodore 
of  Antioch  and  Mopsuestia,  was  ever  enthusiastic  in 
expounding  and  spreading  abroad  the  Word  of  God. 

From  the  year  500  ^  the  missionaries  of  Edessa,  Nisibis, 
and  the  metropolitan  see  of  Seleucia-Ctesiphon,  went  every- 
where abroad  preaching  the  word.  What  an  opportunity 
the  Nestorian  Church  had  !  All  Central,  Southern  and 
Eastern  Asia  was  at  its  feet.  The  sixth  century  was  a 
crisis  in  the  history  of  Christianity  and  the  human  race, 
as  the  sixteenth  and  now  the  nineteenth  have  been.  Mo- 
hammed was  about  to  rise,  and  to  add  to  the  half  truth  of 
Nestorianism  as  to  the  nature  and  person  of  Jesus  Christ 
the  wdiole  lie  of  his  own  call  and  inspiration.  Not  yet, 
however,  were  the  unevangelised  millions  of  Asia,  from  the 
Red  Sea  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  to  see  Islam  with  the  sAvord 
off'ered  to  them  as  the  rival  of  Christ  with  the  Cross  of 
peace  to  sinners,  purity  to  the  forgiven,  and  life  to  the 
world.  Christianity  had  at  least  a  whole  century's  chance 
to  reform  its  Church,  and  transform  Asia  for  ever.  But 
it  failed,  because  its  message  was  not  the  fulness  of  that 
proclaimed  by  the  Christ  of  John's  Gospel. 

The  settlements  that  had  gone  forth  from  Persia  and 
Alexandria  to  India,  holding  apostolical  truth  and  doubt- 
less propagating  it,  seem  to  have  been  the  earliest  to 
conform  to  the  Nestorian  teaching  and  practice  as  fixed 
by  the  Synod  of  Seleucia.  All  around  that  province  the 
savage  Turanian  peoples,  whose  descendants  afterwards 
deluged  Europe  —  Huns  and  Slavs,  also  within  Persia 
Bactrians,  Medes,  Elamites,  and  Koords — received  the  mis- 
sionary with  his  Bible.      Before  the  Mohammedans  had 

^  Arnobius  (a.d.  300)  writes  of  the  Christian  deeds  done  in  Imlia 
and  among  the  Seres,  Persians,  and  Medes.  Nestorian  monks  brought 
the  eggs  of  the  silkworm  to  Constantinople  in  A.D.  551,  and  these  had 
resided  long  in  China. 

G 


18  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

burst  out  of  Arabia  Nestorians  were  preaching  Christ  in 
farthest  China  and  even  in  the  islands  of  Japan.  Timo- 
theus,  who  was  Nestorian  Patriarch  from  the  year  778 
to  820,  was  most  active  in  sending  forth  missionaries. 
Two  are  especially  named,  Cardag  and  Jabdallaha,  who 
reported  such  conversions  that  they  were  ordained  bishops, 
and  were  instructed,  if  they  were  called  on  to  ordain  a 
native  bishop  in  the  distant  savage  lands  which  they 
evangelised,  to  associate  with  themselves  one  of  the 
Gospels  as  the  third  bishop  necessary  for  ordination.  One 
David  was  ordained  bishop  for  China.  When  the  Arab 
traveller  of  the  ninth  century,  Ibn-Wahab,  was  in  China, 
he  found  in  the  Emperor's  court  figures  of  our  Lord  and 
of  the  apostles,  and  the  Emperor  had  been  so  far  in- 
structed, that  he  said  Christ  had  discharged  the  office  of  a 
teacher  on  earth  for  thirty  months. 

Fortunately  for  the  annals  of  Christianity  at  the 
darkest  period  and  in  lands  like  India,  where  the  first 
principles  of  historical  evidence  are  unknown,  we  have 
written  on  living  stone,  and  preserved  to  the  present  day, 
the  records  of  the  missionary  enterprise  of  the  Nestorians 
from  Cape  Comorin  to  far  Cathay,  and  a  statement  of  their 
missionary  teaching.  There  are  no  epigraphic  witnesses 
more  genuine  and  reliable  than  the  inscriptions  on  the 
Nestorian  Tablet  of  Si-ngan-fu  in  North-Western  China, 
and  those  around  the  three  Persian  crosses  of  St.  Thomas's 
Mount,  Madras,  and  the  Kottayam  church  in  Travankor. 
These,  related  to  each  other  by  the  old  Syriac  characters 
known  as  Estrangelo,  common  to  all  four,  are  eloquent 
witnesses  from  so  early  a  period  as  the  year  635  A.D.,  and 
into  the  eighth  century.  We  owe  the  rediscovery  and 
preservation  of  the  former,  in  recent  times,  to  one  of  the 
most  learned  and  cautious  of  American  scholars,  Edward 
E.  Salisbury,  Professor  of  Arabic  and  Sanskrit  in  Yale, 
New  Haven. 

In  the  year  1625  a  Chinese  labourer,  digging  the 
foundations  of  a  house  in  the  ruins  of  the  old  Tartar 
capital  of  Si-ngan-fu  in  Shen-si,  unearthed  a  great  slab, 
seven  and  a  half  feet  high  by  three  feet  wide,  and  covered 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  19 

with  Chinese  characters  surrounded  by  others  then  un- 
known in  China.  The  Jesuit  missionaries  there,  notably 
Alvarez  Semedo,  sent  home  an  account  of  the  treasure, 
which  was  first  made  known  to  Europe  by  Kircher  in  his 
Prodromus  Copticus  in  1636.  Those  who  treated  the 
inscription  as  a  fabrication  of  the  Jesuits  he  contemptu- 
ously answered  in  his  C%ina  Illustrata,  in  which  he  published 
a  copy  of  the  original  with  a  very  imperfect  Latin  rendering 
(1667).  It  was  clearly  unlikely,  indeed  impossible,  that 
the  Jesuits  should  fabricate  an  inscription  which  reflected 
glory  on  their  Nestorian  predecessors,  whom  they  per- 
secuted and  finally  extinguished,  except  in  South  India, 
where  the  Dutch  and  the  English  saved  a  great  remnant 
of  them  by  destroying  the  Portuguese  power.  Semedo, 
who  first  reported  the  discovery,  when  moved  to  Cran- 
ganor,  the  old  centre  of  the  ISTestorians  on  the  Malabar 
coast  of  India,  consulted  his  brethren  there  as  to  the 
strange  characters  surrounding  the  Chinese,  and  they  at 
once  recognised  these  as  the  old  Syriac  with  which  the 
Syrian  Christians  there  are  familiar.  The  Nestorian 
Tablet  continued  to  excite  the  discussion  of  the  learned 
without  definite  result,  until  the  American  Oriental  Society, 
in  1853,  put  the  facts  to  the  test  in  the  light  of  modern 
scholarship.  While  Voltaire  had  scofi'ed  and  Bishop 
Home  had  doubted,  the  learned  S.  Assemanus,  Mosheim 
in  his  Historia  Tartarorum,  Abel-E^musat,  and  Klaproth 
accepted  it.  He  who  is  still  the  greatest  historian  of 
the  Christian  Church,  Neander,  accordingly  suspended  his 
judgment. 

In  1852,  when  the  missionary  Dr.  Bridgman  was  on 
furlough  in  America,  Professor  Salisbury  was  induced  by 
his  conviction  of  the  genuineness  of  the  inscription  to 
examine  the  whole  subject  anew.  The  result  of  the 
paper,^  which  he  read  on  the  14th  October  1852,  was  that 
the  American  Oriental  Society  addressed  each  of  the 
missionaries  of  the  United  States  then  in  China,  request- 
ing that  the  stone  be  visited  again,  and  that  a  facsimile  of 

^  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  iv.  for  1853,  pp. 
401-419. 


20  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

the  inscription  be  taken  by  a  competent  person.  Fortu- 
nately one  of  the  greatest  sinologues,  Mr.  A.  Wylie,^  was 
available,  and  to  him  the  request  was  referred  by  Dr. 
Bridgman.  The  result  in  due  time  was  the  masterly 
article  by  Mr.  Wylie,  reprinted  from  the  North  China 
Herald  in  volume  v.  of  the  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental 
Society,  which  its  committee  of  publication  declared  to  be 
conclusive.  Since  that  time  the  good  work  of  Salisbury 
and  Wylie  has  been  carried  farther  by  the  Baron  von 
Richthofen,  of  Berlin,  who  spent  years  in  China,  where  he 
took  an  absolutely  accurate  "  rubbing  "  of  the  inscriptions. 
That  has  been  reproduced  on  a  small  scale  and  with 
exquisite  accuracy  by  Sir  Henry  Yule  in  the  second 
edition  of  his  Book  of  Ser  Marco  Polo,  the  Vemtian,'^  where 
he  describes  and  comments  on  the  Chinese  and  Syrian 
characters.  The  genuineness  of  this  precious  testimony 
is  for  ever  established. 

It  is  well  that  Professor  Salisbury  and  the  American 
Oriental  Society  moved  when  they  did,  for  in  the  present 
year  1893,  the  latest  missionary  who  has  visited  the  spot 
reports  the  covering  put  up  by  the  Chinese  authorities  to 
protect  the  monument  as  levelled,  and  the  stone  as  laid 
low  and  part  of  the  inscription  as  defaced.  The  local 
priests  ascribe  the  ruin  to  a  great  wind,  but  it  is  believed 
to  have  been  due  to  malicious  hands. 

Apart  from  the  internal  evidence  of  the  inscription, 
which  Mr.  Wylie  translates,  he  cites  seventeen  native 
(non-Christian)  authors,  each  of  whom  treats  it  as  both 

1  Alexander  Wylie  was  of  Scottish  parents,  educated  in  Scotland,  a 
cabinetmaker,  learnt  Chinese,  went  out  as  agent  of  the  Bible  Society 
to  print  the  Chinese  Bible  at  Shanghai  in  1847  ;  travelled  from 
St.  Petersburg  to  Peking  (the  first  to  do  so)  in  1863  ;  wandered  in 
seventeen  provinces  of  China  (all  but  one  of  its  eighteen)  ;  retired 
from  the  Bible  Society  service  in  1877  from  failing  sight ;  died  blind 
in  1887,  aged  72.  His  Bible  in  China,  1868,  is  said  to  be  "an 
interesting  though  brief  account  of  Christian  work,  from  the  earliest 
times,  going  back  to  the  ISTestorians,"  etc.  Sir  Thos.  Wade  and  Dr. 
Legge  speak  of  him  in  highest  terms  as  a  Christian  and  a  sinologue 

2  Vol.  ii.  page  22. 


i^^^^^ii^4M 


;  .v^  >'i  -N.  ^ M  4  ^  ^  ^:^  ^  >F^-^ 

rr.!?:  -f:  n  "•V  -k^  ~<  5^  ^9"  */.  •*^*^  *•  -^  ""-  ^  ■^-  '"^  '^ 
■  ^  ^^  4'  5S  -r*^  Ir  -K?-  ^.%\&  J^  fS  '-V^  :^I  .'W  -;^i  n<  + 
^  .ii-  >ft  <^  H^.V.i?  ^  t^  *v  ti?  .v;  ^  /l  C  a-  if 
.^el- 1*  i!f  ^.  s^  •  .i  .SH  fr-P  «lf ^  «!  -^   W ^  ^?  to 


(■-^OV  .^  ^  'SS;  »s  «•■  ^s  •',<>  W 

.-5  '|{  A?:^  w|  i^fc  .W  %(•  ^^  tt  4^  W  -lie  *g  A<^>| 
•\^^- ^  ?i  »^  «!  ^:.ii^         ^5J  :t^  ^  i^  >y^  ^^  • ;:. 


tHE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  21 

genuine  and  authentic  while  having  something  peculiar  to 
record  regarding  it.  The  imperial  proclamation  of  A.D.  746 
which  it  contains  is  found  in  a  contemporary  book,  and 
the  fact  that  a  foreign  temple  stood  on  the  very  spot 
indicated  on  the  Tablet  is  recorded  in  the  works  of  two 
dynasties.  Mr.  Wylie  traces  the  influence  of  the  three 
national  religious  sects  in  the  phraseology  of  the  inscrip- 
tion. The  writer  was  evidently  a  convert  well  versed  in 
Confucian  lore.  The  tenets  of  the  Christian  faith  are 
"clothed  in  an  elegance  of  diction  unobjectionable  even 
to  Chinese  taste."  The  nomenclature  of  the  various 
ecclesiastical  institutions  shows  a  Buddhist  tendency. 
Taouist  phraseology  is  cons2:)icuous  in  the  edict  of 
toleration. 

The  main  inscription,  which  is  of  great  length  and 
beautiful  execution,  consists  of  1780  Chinese  characters. 
Mr.  Wylie's  version  of  it  deserves  reproduction,  with  that 
of  the  ode  which  follows  it,  and  that  of  the  Syriac.  The 
Alopan  or  Olopan  mentioned  is  pronounced  by  Sir  Henr;;^' 
Yule  to  be  the  Chinese  form  of  the  Syriac  word  for 
monk,  "Eabban." 

The  Tablet,  which  describes  itself  as  "  eulogising  the 
propagation  of  the  Illustrious  Religion  in  China,  with  a 
preface ;  composed  by  King-tsing,  a  priest  of  the  Syrian 
Church,"  begins  with  an  .  account  of  creation  by  "  our 
eternal  true  Lord  God,  triune  and  mysterious  in  sub- 
stance. He  appointed  the  cross  as  the  means  for 
determining  the  four  cardinal  points.  .  .  .  He  then 
made  the  first  man  pure  and  unostentatious,  until 
Satan  introduced  the  seeds  of  falsehood,  .  .  .  There- 
upon our  Trinity  being  divided  in  nature,  the  illustrious 
and  honourable  Messiah,  veiling  his  true  dignity,  appeared 
in  the  world  as  a  man ;  angelic  powers  promulgated  the 
glad  tidings,  a  virgin  gave  birth  to  the  Holy  One  in  Syria, 
a  bright  star  announced  the  felicitous  event,  and  Persians 
observing  the  splendour  came  to  present  tribute.  The 
ancient  dispensation  as  declared  by  the  twenty-four  holy 
men  was  then  fulfilled,  and  He  laid  down  great  principles 
for    the    government    of    families    and    kingdoms;    He 


22  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

established  the  new  religion  of  the  silent  operation  of  the 
pure  Spirit  of  the  Triune,  He  rendered  virtue  subservient 
to  direct  faith.  .  .  .  Having  thus  completed  the  manifesta- 
tion of  His  power  in  clear  day  He  ascended  to  His  true 
station.  Twenty-seven  sacred  books  have  been  left,  which 
disseminate  intelligence  by  unfolding  the  original  trans- 
forming principles.  By  the  rule  for  admission  it  is  the 
custom  to  apply  the  water  of  baptism." 

These  extracts  show  the  comparative  purity  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Nestorian  missionaries  as  received  by  a  Confucian, 
and  expressed  in  old  Chinese  style.  These  historical  facts 
follow  that,  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Tae-tsung,  "  among 
the  holy  men  who  arrived  was  the  Most-virtuous  Alopan 
from  the  court  of  Syria.  ...  In  the  year  A.D.  635  he -ar- 
rived at  Chang-gang.  The  sacred  books  were  translated  in 
the  imperial  library ;  the  sovereign  investigated  the  subject 
in  his  private  apartments ;  when  becoming  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  rectitude  and  truth  of  the  religion  he 
gave  special  orders  for  its  dissemination."  Then  follows 
his  proclamation,  which  informed  the  millions  of  Cathay, 
"in  the  seventh  month  of  the  year  A.D.  638,"  that  Chris- 
tianity "  has  taken  its  rise  from  the  establishment  of  im- 
portant truths ;  its  ritual  is  free  from  perplexing  expres- 
sions, its  principles  will  survive  when  the  framework  is 
forgot,  it  is  beneficial  to  all  creatures,  it  is  advantageous 
to  mankind."  The  result  is  told,  and  the  inscription  con- 
tinues :  "  While  this  doctrine  pervaded  every  channel  the 
state  became  enriched,  and  tranquillity  abounded.  Every 
city  was  full  of  churches."  The  closing  passage  tells  how 
"  our  great  benefactor  E-sze  .  .  .  from  the  distant  city  of 
Rajagriha,  came  to  visit  China,"  and  "  practising  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  illustrious  religion  he  distributed  his  riches 
in  deeds  of  benevolence."  At  the  same  time,  Ave  know 
that  the  Chinese  pilgrim  Hwen  Tsang  was  visiting  India 
to  worship  at  its  Buddhist  shrines,  Rajagriha  among  them. 
In  Cathay,  as  in  India,  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism  pre- 
vailed, while  the  Christians  were  persecuted  by  the 
Mohammedans,  from  their  first  conquest  of  Persia  to  the 
butcheries  perpetrated   by   Timur,  the  sixth   in  descent 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  23 

from  whom,  Baber,  founded  in  1526  the  Mogul  dynasty 
at  Delhi. 

The  Chinese  portion  of  the  Si-ngan-fu  Tablet  concludes 
with  an  ode,  of  which  these  two  verses,  as  translated  by 
Wylie,  refer  specially  to  Christianity,  while  the  others 
record  the  prosperity  of  the  successive  emperors  who  pro- 
fessed the  new  faith. 

"  WTien  the  pure,  dright,  Illustrious  religion 
Was  introduced  to  our  Tang  dynasty, 
The  Scriptures  xcere  translated  and  churches  built, 
And  the  vessel  set  in  motioyifor  the  living  and  the  dead  ; 
Every  kind  of  blessing  was  then  obtained, 
And  all  the  kingdoms  enjoyed  a  state  of  peace. 

The  true  doctrine  how  expansive  ! 
Its  responses  are  mimUe  ; 
Sow  difficult  to  name  it ! 
To  elucidate  the  Three  in  One." 

The  two  lines  of  Syriac  in  the  Estrangelo  character,  run- 
ning down  the  right  and  left  sides  of  the  Chinese,  are 
thus  translated  by  Kircher — 

"Adam,  Deacon,  Vicar -einscopal,  and  Pope  of  China, 
In  the  time  of  the  Father  of  Fathers,  the  Lord  John  Joshua,  the  Universal 
Patriarch." 

In  Syriac  also,  at  the  foot,  is  an  account  of  Adam,  his 
father,  "priest  of  Balkh,  a  city  of  Turkestan,"  and  his 
archdeacon.  On  the  left-hand  edge  of  the  stone  are  the 
Syriac  names  of  sixty -seven  priests,  and  of  sixty-one  in 
Chinese. 

The  Tablet  was  next  visited  and  described  by  Dr. 
Alexander  Williamson  in  1866,  when  on  a  tour  for  the 
National  Bible  Society  of  Scotland,  in  North  China,  Man- 
churia, and  Eastern  Mongolia.  After  preaching  in  the 
great  city  of  Si-ngan-fu,  to  which  his  passport  admitted 
him,  he  left  it  by  the  west  gate,  crossed  a  desolated  tract, 
then  a  field  of  wheat,  and  leaping  a  ruined  wall,  he  found 
the  Tablet  "  perfect,  with  not  a  scratch  on  it,  in  a  brick 
enclosure  facing  the  south."     "The  preserving  care  of  a 


24  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

wise  Providence  was  the  first  thouglit  in  our  minds,  for 
this  Tablet  not  only  enumerates  all  the  leading  doctrines 
of  our  holy  religion,  but  is  a  most  important  witness  in 
favour  of  our  faith  in  opposition  both  to  the  heathen  and 
the  Romanist."  Since  Mr.  AVylie's  visit,  he  found  on  the 
edge  of  the  stone  on  the  left  side  an  inscription  to  the 
effect  that,  in  the  ninth  year  of  Hiengfung  (1859  A.D.),  one 
Han-tai-wha,  from  Woo-lin,  had  found  the  characters  and 
ornamentation  perfect,  and  had  rebuilt  the  brick  covering. 
The  stone  is  a  coarse  marble,  and  was  then  rebuilt  in  the 
brick  wall  where  it  had  once  stood  outside  the  city.  The 
Professor  of  Chinese  at  Yale  College,  S.  Wells  Williams, 
LL.D.,  in  The  Middle  Kingdom,  reproduces  Wylie's  transla- 
tion as  marked  by  "  a  fulness  and  a  care  which  leaves 
little  to  be  desired."  ^ 

We  owe  to  the  late  Dr.  Burnell,  the  most  distinguished 
scholar  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service  in  his  day,  the  best 
account  of  the  three  Persian  crosses  of  South  India  with 
their  old  Syriac  inscriptions.^  So  early  as  1802  Mr.  F. 
Wrede,  of  the  same  service,  wrote  what  is  still  the  best 
account  of  the  "  St.  Thome  Christians  on  the  Coast  of 
Malabar,"  in  the  Asiatick  Researches^ oi  the  Bengal  Society, 
founded  by  Sir  William  Jones,  and  the  parent  of  all  sub- 
sequent Oriental  societies.  He  was  the  first  to  expose  the 
legend  of  the  arrival  and  martyrdom  of  the  apostle 
Thomas  in  India,  and  in  this  all  scholars  now  agree.*  Dr. 
Burnell  is  inclined  to  substitute  Mani  and  the  Manichoeans 
as  probably  the  first  preachers  before  272  A.D.,  and  he 
makes  the  Nestorians  later,  but  on  insufficient  grounds. 
His  service  consists  in  bringing  to  notice  the  many  Pahlavi^ 
inscriptions  which  are  known  to  have  existed  all  over 

1  Vol.  ii.  p.  277  of  the  revised  edition.     London,  1883. 

2  The  Imlian  Antiquary  for  November  1874,  p.  308,  then  edited  by 
Dr.  Burgess   CLE. 

3  Vol.  vii.  p   362. 

*  See  Syriac  Documents  Attributed  to  the  First  Three  Centuries,  as 
translated  in  Messrs.  T.  and  T.  Clark's  Ante-Nicene  Christian  Library 
1871. 

*  The  literary  language  of  the  Persians,  or  Perso-Sassanians. 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  25 

Southern  India,  and  prove  the  importance  of  the  Perso- 
Christian  settlements.  He  has  reproduced  the  cross  built 
into  the  wall  behind  the  altar  in  a  church  on  the  Great 
Mount  near  Madras,  and  discovered  during  some  Por- 
tuguese excavations  about  1547.  The  slab  was  then 
accurately  described  as  having  on  one  face  a  cross  in  relief, 
with  a  bird  like  a  dove  over  it  with  its  wings  expanded, 
as  the  Holy  Ghost  is  usually  represented  when  descending 
on  our  Lord.  Two  others  are  in  the  old  church  at  Kot- 
tayam.  The  inscriptions  belong  to  the  seventh  or  eighth 
century,  the  period  of  the  Si-ngan-fu  stone.  One  of  the 
Kottayam  tablets  has  a  Syriac^  inscription,  which  Dr. 
Burnell  believes  to  be  later  than  the  Pahlavi,  and  to  have 
been  added  to  make  all  orthodox  according  to  Nestorian 
views.  The  result  of  repeated  readings  by  himself  and 
by  Drs.  Haug  and  E.  W.  West  is  this — 

Syriac. 

Let  me  not  glory  except 'in  the  cross  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Pahlavi. 

Who  is  the  true  Messiah  and  God  alone  and 
Holy  Ghost. 

Dr.  Burnell,  holding  to  his  theory,  sees  in  this  statement 
a  desire  to  contradict  the  Manichaean  doctrine,  that  the 

^  The  close  and  frequent  interconrse  between  Persia  and  India  in 
the  early  Christian  centuries  finds  a  striking  literary  illustration  in 
the  mission  of  the  good  physician,  Barzoi,  sent  by  King  Khosru  Nushir- 
van  (a.d,  531-579)  to  India  to  procure  a  copy  of  the  earliest  of  all 
collections  of  stories  with  a  moral.  Barzoi,  if  not  altogether  then 
*'  almost "  a  Christian,  translated  into  Pahlavi  many  of  the  Sanskrit 
books,  but  particularly  the  Panchatantra,  or  "five  books,"  and  three 
tales  in  the  Mahabharata  epic,  forming  the  collection  Kalilah  and 
Dimnah,  as  told  by  Bidpai,  the  "  Pilpay"  of  modern  Europe,  at  his 
sovereign's  request.  The  Pahlavi  version  was  at  once,  in  570  a.d., 
translated  into  Syriac  by  an  ecclesiastic  named  Bod,  and  into  Arabic. 
The  former  has  disappeared,  but  the  latter  version  was  translated  into 


26  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

crucified  Messiah  was  the  son  of  a  poor  widow  and  not 
Jesus  Christ.  Dr.  Milne  Rae  ^  traces  in  this  the  Nestorian 
teaching  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Godhead,  not  of  the 
Logos  only — ^that  each  of  the  three  Persons  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  was  incarnate  in  the  Christ.  However  this  may  be, 
all  true  Christians  will  rejoice  in  the  evidence  that  links  the 
earliest  attempts  at  the  conversion  of  India  not  only  with 
the  once  doubting  Thomas,  but  with  the  mighty  apostle 
of  the  Gentiles,  and  his  glorying  in  the  crucified  One 
(Galatians  vi.   14).     And  we  may  note  that  the  Syrian 

Syiiac  again  by  a  Christian  priest  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries. 
This  later  Syiiac  version  was  rendered  into  English,  with  learned 
critical  notes,  by  the  Hon.  I.  G.  N.  Keith-Falconer,  M.A.,  in  1885 
(for  the  Syndics  of  Cambridge  University  Press).  Two  years  after 
that  devoted  Cliristian  scholar  went  to  South  Arabia  to  found  the 
mission  which,  after  his  early  death,  bears  liis  name. 

1  Tlie  Syrian  Church  in  Indm  (Edinburgh,  1892).  For  the  recent 
history  and  present  position  of  the  Nazarani  of  Malabar,  see  that 
volume ;  also  Collins's  Missionary  Enter2Jrise  in  the  East,  and 
Whitehouse's  Syrian  Church  of  Malabar,  both  published  in  1873. 
Dr.  Germanns's  Die  Kirche  der  Thomaschristcn  (Giitersloh,  1877,  792 
pp.)  is  a  thorough  history  from  St.  Thomas  to  Mar  Ignatius,  the 
Jacobite  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  who  appeared  at  the  Brighton  Church 
of  England  Congress  in  1874  en  route  to  ]\Ialabar,  but  of  no  critical 
value.  It  does  not,  however,  refer  to  Captain  Swanston's  three 
invaluable  papers — "  Memoir  of  the  Church  of  Malayala  "  in  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society's  Journal  for  1834-35.  The  latest  account  of  the 
Christians  is  the  hopeful  statement  made  by  the  Anglican  clergy  in 
Travankor  and  Cochin  to  Lord  Wenlock,  Governor  of  Madras,  when 
in  1892,  accompanied  by  Bishop  Hodges,  he  visited  Kottayam :— "Many 
abuses  which  shocked  the  early  missionaries  have  been  removed.  Ver- 
nacular preaching  by  better  educated  Kattauars  has  become  common  ; 
and  the  Syrian  Christians,  whether  those  calling  themselves  children 
of  the  Jacobite  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  or  those  following  the  Reforming 
Metrans,  have  one  godly  feature  in  common  with  the  Anglican  Church, 
namely,  a  growing  appreciation  and  reverence  for  the  Word  of  God  in 
the  vernacular.  Furthermore,  it  is  only  due  to  the  Syrian  Church  to 
say  that  the  co-operation  and  assistance  of  the  Anglican  clergy  is  often 
welcomed,  and  it  might  be  further  developed  but  for  the  immediate 
charge  of  their  own  Hocks,  at  present  numbering  over  twenty-five 
thousand  people  " 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  27 

characters  added  to  the  inscription  in  each  case  bring 
together  the  public  confession  of  Christ  by  the  Churches 
of  Malabar  and  Coromandel,  and  that  of  the  old  capital  of 
far  Cathay. 

In  the  Chaldsean  Breviary  of  the  Church  of  India  in 
Malabar  the  office  of  St.  Thomas  thus  commemorates  its 
legendary  origin :  "  By  St.  Thomas  were  the  errors  of  idol- 
atry banished  from  among  the  Indians.  By  St.  Thomas 
were  the  Chinese  and  the  Ethiopians  converted  to  the  truth." 
And  this  anthem  further  links  together  the  three  missionary 
conquests  of  the  Nestorian  Church :  "  The  Hinchis  and  the 
Chinese  and  the  Persians,  and  all  the  ]jeople  of  the  isles  of  the 
sea,  and  theij  ivho  dwell  in  Syria  and  Armenia,  in  Javan  and 
Bomania,  call  Thomas  to  remembrance  and  adm'e  Thy  Name, 
0  Thou,  our  Redeemer."  But  the  evidence,  at  once  the 
saddest  and  the  most  overpowering,  of  the  extent  and  the 
influence  of  the  first  missionary  organisation  in  Asia  is 
seen  in  its  persecution  by  Shahpoor  II.  of  Persia  in 
339,  340,  who  sought  to  extirpate  it,  when  Constantine 
identified  the  Empire  ^ath  the  Christian  Church.  No- 
where is  there  such  a  record  of  suffering  to  the  death  for 
Christ,  with  occasional  apostasy,  as  in  the  Syrian  Acts  of 
Persian  Martyrs.  The  persecution  lasted  for  forty  years ; 
but  the  Church  was  not  suppressed  even  in  its  head- 
quarters of  Nisibis,  which  was  twice  besieged,  nor  was 
the  Armenian  Church  destroyed.  By  the  sixth  century  it 
covered  the  western  coast  of  India  and  the  island  of  Ceylon, 
by  the  seventh  it  was  tolerated,  and  by  the  eighth — as  we 
have  seen — it  was  encouraged  by  imperial  decree  in  China. 

We  have  what  may  be  most  justly  described  as  the 
first  India  Mission  Eeport  written  in. 5 4 7,  or  thirteen 
and  a  half  centuries  ago,  by  the  man  who  comes  next  to 
Pantsenus  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  India — Cosmas, 
Indian  navigator  and  monk.  This  work  is  the  Universal 
Christian  Topography,  XpLa-naviKY)  Toiroypa^ia  iravrhs  KocTfxov, 
written  at  the  request  of  his  friend  Pamphilus,  at  first  in 
six  books,  and  then  gradually  increased  to  twelve,  of 
which  the  last  alone  is  imperfect.  Intending  only,  as 
Gibbon  puts  it,  to  confute  the  impious  heresy  of  those 


28  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

who  maintain  that  the  earth  is  a  globe  and  not  a  flat 
oblong  table,  as  represented  in  the  Scriptures,  Cosmas, 
who  was  no  less  wise  than  the  clerical  assailants  of  geology 
a  generation  ago,  left  the  most  suggestive  missionary  and 
geographical  treatise  up  to  William  Carey's  Enquirij  and 
David  Livingstone's  Travels  in  our  own  time.  He  was  the 
classical  precursor  of  Livingstone,  indeed,  as  the  traveller 
who  was  the  first  to  make  Geography,  Commerce,  and 
Industry  the  handmaids  of  Christian  missions. 

Cosmas  was  a  merchant  of  Alexandria  and  frequent 
navigator  to  the  East,  in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
Justinian.  From  the  Mediterranean  dov»m  the  Red  Sea  to 
the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Bay  of  Bengal  this  Indico- 
pleustes,  as  he  was  surnamed,  pursued  his  adventurous 
calling.  Nor  was  he  content  with  the  sea  and  the 
commercial  settlements  which  dotted  its  coasts  from  the 
Pharos  to  far  Taprobane.  Well  educated,  his  observant 
eye  and  inquisitive  mind  investigated  the  history,  the 
character,  and  the  customs  of  the  peoples  of  the  East,  and 
his  ready  pen  recorded  the  results  in  many  a  work  that 
has  not  survived.  When,  for  instance,  he  had  done  his 
business  at  Adule,  the  Red  Sea  port  of  Ethiopia,  he  found 
out  and  copied  inscriptions,  one  of  which  describes  the 
conquest  of  the  Asiatic  empire  of  the  Seleucidse  by 
Ptolemy  Euergetes,  B.C.  247-222,  which  led  scholars  to 
inquire  into  and  establish  the  history  of  the  campaigns. 
Wearied  with  much  globe-trotting,  as  it  is  now  called,  and 
an  ardent  student  of  Scripture,  the  Alexandrian  merchant 
and  sailor  became  a  monk,  and  gave  up  the  rest  of  his 
days  to  what  so  good  a  critic  as  Canon  Yenables  describes 
as  vivid  descriptions  of  the  countries  he  had  visited,  and 
the  remarkable  facts  he  had  observed  or  learned.  His 
Christian  Topography  is  illustrated  by  sketches  and  diagrams 
from  his  own  hand. 

He  represents  the  four  gulfs  as  seas  which  enter  the 
land  from  the  ocean,  then  impossible  to  navigate  on 
account  of  the  multitude  of  the  currents  and  fogs,  as  the 
Roman  or  Mediterranean,  the  Arabian  or  Erythrsean,  the 
Persian,  and  the  Caspian  or  Hircanian.     "I  myself,"  he 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  29 

writes,  "  for  purposes  of  trade  have  sailed  on  three  out  of 
those  four  gulfs  :  to  wit,  the  Eoman,  the  Arabian,  and  the 
Persian ;  and  I  have  got  accurate  information  about  the 
different  jolaces  on  them  from  the  natives  as  well  as  from 
seafaring  men."  The  most  precious  passage  of  the  whole 
work  is  the  following,  which  surveys  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  throughout  the  world  five  centuries  after  our 
Lord's  death.  It  might  be  mistaken  for  part  of  a  modern 
missionary  history  : — 

"So  that  I  can  speak  with  confidence  of  the  truth  of  what  I  say, 
relating  what  I  have  myself  seen  and  heard  in  many  places  that  I  have 
visited. 

"Even  in  the  Island  of  Taprobane,  in  Farther  India,  where  the  Indian 
Sea  is,  there  is  a  Church  of  Christians  with  clergy  and  a  congregation 
of  believers,  thongh  I  know  not  if  there  be  any  Christians  farther  on 
in  that  direction  ;  and  such  is  also  the  case  in  the  land  called  Male, 
where  the  pepper  grows.  And  in  the  place  called  Kalliana  there  is  a 
bishop  appointed  from  Persia  as  well  as  in  the  isle  called  the  Isle  of 
Dioscoris  in  the  same  Indian  Sea.  ,  The  inhabitants  of  that  island 
speak  Greek,  having  been  originally  settled  there  by  the  Ptolemies 
who  ruled  after  Alexander  of  Macedon.  There  are  clergy  there  also 
ordained  and  sent  from  Persia  to  minister  among  the  people  of  the 
island  and  a  multitude  of  Christians.  We  sailed  past  the  island,  but 
did  not  land.  I  met,  however,  with  people  from  it  who  were  on  their 
way  to  Ethiopia,  and  they  spoke  Greek.  And  so  likewise  among  the 
Bactrians,  and  Huns,  and  Persians,  and  the  rest  of  the  Indians,  and 
among  the  Persarmenians,  and  Greeks,  and  Elamites,  and  throughout  the 
whole  land  of  Persia,  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  churches  with 
bishops  and  avast  multitude  of  Christian  people,  and  they  have  many 
martyrs  and  recluses  leading  a  monastic  life.  So  also  in  Ethiopia  and 
in  Axum,  and  in  all  the  country  round  about ;  among  the  Happy 
Arabians,  who  nowadays  are  called  Homeritse,  and  all  through  Arabia 
and  Palestine,  Phcenieia,  and  all  Syria,  and  Antioch,  and  Mesopo- 
tamia, also  among  the  Nubians  and  the  Garamantes,  in  Egypt,  Libya, 
and  Peutapolis,  and  so  through  Africa  and  Mauritania  as  far  as 
Southern  Gades.  In  a  very  great  number  of  places  one  found  churches 
of  Christians  with  bishops,  martyrs,  monks,  and  recluses,  wherever,  in 
fact,  the  gospel  of  Christ  hath  been  proclaimed.  So  likewise,  again, 
in  Cilicia,  Asia,  Cappadocia,  Larice,  and  Pontus,  and  in  the  northern 
regions  of  the  Scythians,  Hyrcanians,  Heruli,  Bulgarians,  Greeks  and 
Illyrians,  Dalmatians,  Goths,  Spaniards,  Romans,  Franks,  and  other 
nations,  till  you  get  to  Ocean  Gades." 


30  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

"Soutliern  Gades"  was  the  equivalent  then  for  the 
World's  End,  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa.  "  Ocean  Gades  " 
may  well  include  the  British  Isles  which  traded  with  it. 
Thus  this  merchant-missionary,  in  his  survey  of  advancing 
Christendom  from  his  central  watch-tower  in  Alexandria, 
links  on  the  Scoto-Irish  Church  of  the  saints  with  the 
Nestorian  Church  of  Malabar  and  Ceylon,  at  the  time  when 
Justinian  was  building  at  Constantinople  the  great  Basilica 
of  Saint  Sophia,  and  Columba  was  training  in  lona  the 
missionary  band  who  were  to  flash  the  light  once  more 
on  Saxon  England,  and,  through  Boniface,  on  still  heathen 
Germany,  and  so  to  prepare  both  to  light  up  the  torch  of 
truth  in  India. 

Yet,  in  India,  as  all  over  Asia,  the  Nestorian  mission- 
aries failed  to  create  self-propagating  Christian  Churches, 
when  Rome  took  up  the  work,  and  summoned  the  nations 
of  the  East  also  to  submit  to  its  sway.  At  the  present 
time  the  whole  number  of  Syrian  Christians  ^  in  India, 
chiefly  in  the  feudatory  state  of  Cochin,  is  200,467,  out  of 
the  2,284,172  who  returned  themselves  as  Christians  in  the 
imperial  census  of  1891.  This  considerable  remnant  has 
survived  first  neglect,  then  the  change  from  the  Nestorian 
patriarchate  of  Babylon  in  1665  to  the  Jacobite  patriarchate 
of  Antioch,  the  intolerance  of  Romanist  Portugal,  the 
indiff"erence  of  the  Dutch,  the  reforming  efi'orts  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  and  successive  BishojDs  of 
Calcutta,  and  the  enlightenment  diffused  among  its  young 
men  by  such  institutions  as  the  Madras  Christian  College. 
Every  eleventh  Christian  in  India  still  lives  on  a  theo- 
logical past  so  dead  as  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  still 
holds  a  metaphysical  religion.  What  Gibbon  wrote,  in 
his  thirty-seventh  chapter,  of  their  fathers  is  still  true  of 
them :  tie  Nestorian  and  Eutychian  controversies  which 
attempted  to  explain  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation, 
hastened  the  ruin  of  Christianity  in  her  native  land.     Be- 

1  For  the  200,000  Nestorians  in  their  central  seat  in  Koordistan 
and  North  Persia,  to  whom  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  sends  a 
mission,  see  Dean  Maclean's  book,  The  Catholicos  of  the  East  and  His 
People,  1892.     See  also  Gibbon's  forty-seventh  chapter. 


THE  GREEK  ATTEMPT  31 

cause  their  faith  was  weak,  their  message  mutilated,  their 
intellect  darkened,  and  their  life  selfish,  it  was  not  possible 
for  the  colonies  of  Syrian  and  Persian  Christians  dispersed 
on  its  southern  shores  to  bring  India  to  Christ.  Unjourged 
from  the  old  leaven,  it  was  not  for  them  to  leaven  the 
whole  lump. 


in 

THE   ROMAN   ATTEMPT 

**  Not  of  works,  lest  any  man  should  boast. " — Ephesians  ii.  9. 

The  marvel  is  that  Christianity,  which  in  all  the  circura- 
Etances  of  its  environment  is  Asiatic,  did  not  permeate 
Asia  first,  did  not  bring  in  the  elder  Aryans  of  India,  and 
then  spread  over  Europe.  The  process  was  reversed. 
Taken  by  Paul  from  the  martyr-teaching  of  Stephen,  and 
the  direct  revelation  of  the  Lord  Himself,  and  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  gospel  sought  Europe  through  Macedonia, 
Athens,  and  Corinth, — through  Rome  above  all.  It  found 
our  fathers  as  savages  in  the  far  West,  and  has  gradually 
given  the  English-speaking  peoples  the  combined  power 
and  duty  of  propagating  it  in  Asia.  Christianity  trans- 
formed Europe  first,  because  Europe  remained  true  to  the 
New  Testament  teaching  of  the  Incarnation,  and  rejected 
the  Arian  heresy.  Christianity  in  Asia  yielded  first  to 
Buddhism,  and  then  to  Mohammedanism,  which  travestied 
its  ritual,  borrowed  its  ethics  without  the  motive  power, 
and  opposed  its  root  ideas,  till  the  Christian  became  in  India 
little  more  than  an  addition  to  the  many  Brahman ical 
castes. 

Parallel  in  time  with  the  missionary  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Europe,  the  Saracens  carried  the  Koran  and  the 
sword  of  Mohammed  all  over  Western  Asia  and  Northern 
Africa,  then  threatened  Europe  itself  up  to  Vienna,  and 
from  Spain  into  the  heart  of  France.     In  637  A.D.  they 


THE  ROMAN  ATTEMPT  33 

seized  Jerusalem;  in  737  tlieir  devastating  progress  was 
arrested  by  Charles  Martel  at  Tours,  the  whole  breadth  of 
two  continents  having  been  covered  in  a  century.  The 
answer  of  the  Church  of  Rome  was  twofold.  The  six 
Crusades  from  1096  to  1248  familiarised  Europe  with  the 
missionary  idea,  but  achieved  no  spiritual  result,  while 
their  military  failure  only  strengthened  the  power  of 
Islam.  The  monastic  brotherhoods  increased  in  number 
and  took  up  the  missionary  cry,  "  God  wills  it,"  some  of 
them  in  a  higher  sense  than  the  crusading  hosts.  The 
Italian  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  the  Spaniard  Raymund  Lull 
of  Majorca,  became  the  most  devoted  preachers  to  the 
Mohammedans  Christendom  had  seen.  The  Castilian 
Dominic  founded  his  order  of  preachers  backed  by  the 
Inquisition,  proclaiming  the  Pope  or  the  sword. 

But  such  men  were  exceptional.  And  the  terror  of 
Europe  was  soon  turned  from  the  advance  of  Islam  to  the 
rise  of  another  power.  At  the  head  of  his  Mongol  hordes, 
Chinghiz  Khan  (born  in  1162,  died  1227)  conquered 
China,  and  then  the  whole  of  Western  Asia  from  the 
Indies  to  the  Caspian  and  European  Russia.  The  Mon- 
golian dynasty  which  he  founded  continued  his  conquests 
right  into  the  heart  of  Europe,  under  Batu  at  Cracow  and 
Breslau,  Pesth,  and  Lignitz,  defeating  the  chivalry  of 
Christendom  led  by  Prince  Henry  of  Siles'ia  on  the  12th 
April  1241.  With  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  Frederic 
II.  at  enmity  in  those  days,  it  seemed  as  if  the  end  had 
come  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  when  the  Tartar  host  dis- 
appeared almost  in  one  hour,  recalled  by  a  courier  who 
announced  the  death  of  the  Great  Khan  (Okkodai)  in  the 
depths  of  Asia. 

The  defeat  near  Lignitz  thoroughly  roused  Christendom, 
so  that  in  1245  the  Council  of  Lyons  was  summoned  by 
Pope  Innocent  to  devise  measures  for  its  protection  against 
the  Tartar  enemy.  There  was  also  the  under-current  of 
feeling  that  the  Mongolian  hordes  had  been  already  so  far 
influenced  by  the  Nestorian  missionaries  as  to  be  ready  to 
accept  the  profession,  at  least,  of  Christianity,  and  Chinghiz 
Khan  was  by  not  a  few  identified  with  the  mysterious 

D 


34  THE   CONVERSION    OF   INDIA 

Prester  John.  Was  this  new  people,  whose  Great  Khan 
had  beat  down  Mohammedans  over  so  great  a  portion  of 
Asia,  not  likely  to  unite  with  the  West  in  friendly  co-opera- 
tion, and  even  to  accept  the  spiritual  teaching  of  its  Church  ? 
At  any  rate  the  attempt  was  made.  The  new  Asiatic 
empire  had  become  tolerant,  and  it  had  by  its  very  con- 
quests made  journeying  at  once  secure  and  easy  to  the 
new  capital  of  Cambaluc  or  Peking.  Hence  missionaries 
and  travellers,  ambassadors  and  traders,  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  Asia  with  a  facility  impossible  ever  since,  and 
least  of  all,  at  the  close  of  this  nineteenth  century.  One 
chronicler  invites  the  grateful  remembrance  of  all  Christian 
people,  because  "just  at  the  time  when  God  sent  forth 
into  the  eastern  parts  of  the  world  the  Tartars  to  slay  and 
be  slain.  He  also  sent  forth  in  the  west  his  faithful  and 
blessed  servants,  Dominic  and  Francis,  to  enlighten,  in- 
struct, and  build  up  in  the  faith." 

Then,  in  Cathay  as  in  Africa  in  the  present  day,  the 
missionaries  of  Eome  were  more  diplomatists  than  evan- 
gelists. Thus  early  did  failure  begin  to  mark  their 
mission  as  it  had  vitiated  that  of  their  predecessors  the 
Nestorians,  whose  churches  and  followers  they  frequently 
met  with.  Their  message  was  imperfect,  their  methods 
were  more  of  this  world  than  those  of  Christ  Himself, 
their  motives  were  mixed.  The  first  monkish  envoy  from 
the  Pope,  sent  forth  from  Lyons  in  1245,  was  an  Italian, 
John  of  Piano  Carpini,  and  he  returned  from  North  China 
in  1247  with  a  haughty  reply.  His  narrative  tells  of 
Cathayans,  on  the  sea-shore  of  China,  with  the  Christian 
books,  churches,  and  worship,  but  unbaptized,  evidently 
of  Nestorian  origin.  He  was  succeeded  in  1256  by 
William  de  Rubruquis,  who  professed  himself  a  pure 
missionary,  but  who  carried  letters  from  Louis  IX.  of 
France,  and  he  is  the  first  accurately  to  describe  the 
Chinese  hieroglyphic  writing.  Immediately  after  him 
Hayton  I.,  king  of  little  Armenia,  sent  his  brother  to  the 
Khan  to  do  homage  as  a  vassal,  and  he  was  absent  for 
four  years.  In  a  letter  to  the  king  and  queen  of  Cyprus, 
sent  from  Samarkand,  the  prince  writes  of  Tangut,  in 


THE   ROMAN  ATTEMPT  35 

Cathay,  as  the  land  from  which  the  three  kings  went  to 
Bethlehem  to  worship  Jesus  Christ,  and  adds — "  I  tell  you 
that  we  have  found  many  Christians  scattered  all  over  the 
East,  and  many  fine  churches,  lofty,  ancient,  and  of  good 
architecture,  which  have  been  spoiled  by  the  Turks."  He 
records  how  the  conquests  of  the  Khans  had  delivered 
from  the  cruelty  of  the  Mohammedans  a  certain  Christian 
king  in  the  land  of  India.  King  Hayton  himself  went  to 
the  Great  Khan's  court,  and  gives  a  rough  account  of 
Buddhism. 

By  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  it  seemed  to 
depend  on  an  accident  whether  the  prevailing  religion  in 
Asia  might  not  be  Christianity,  nominally,  at  least,  like 
Vladimir's  in  Eussia.  The  Khans,  described  as  "  deists," 
had  gradually  come  to  accept  the  policy  of  uniting  with 
the  Christian  Powers  of  Europe  against  the  Musalmans, 
as  formulated  at  Lyons.  Kublai  Khan,  the  greatest  of 
them,  was  willing  to  study  Latin  Christianity,  but  he  was 
denied  the  opportunity  for  which  he  sought.  It  is  Marco 
Polo  who  records  the  facts,  and  no  part  of  his  marvellous 
book  is  so  interesting  as  that  record. 

When  Nicolas  and  MafFeo  Polo,  the  father  and  uncle  of 
the  great  Venetian,  first  visited  his  court  as  teachers, 
Kublai  examined  them  "  about  the  ways  of  the  Latins," 
and  sent  them  back  as .  his  envoys  to  the  Pope.  In  his 
letter,  copies  of  which,  dated  a  century  later  from  the 
Khan  of  Persia  to  the  King  of  France,  are  preserved 
in  the  French  archives,  Kublai  asked  for  a  hundred 
Christians,  "  intelligent  men  acquainted  with  the  seven 
arts,"  well  qualified  to  enter  into  controversy,  and  able 
clearly  to  prove  by  force  of  argument  to  idolaters  and 
other  kinds  of  folk  that  the  law  of  Christ  was  best,  and 
that  all  other  religions  were  false  and  naught ;  and  that 
if  they  would  prove  this  he  and  all  under  him  would  be- 
come Christians  and  the  Church's  liegemen."  This  is  a 
remarkable  document.  When  we  remember  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  and  our  own 
Saxon  forefathers,  we  may  say  that  virtually  the  fate  of 
Asia  as  to  prevailing  religious  belief  hung  upon  it.     But 


oi)  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

what  was  the  result?  On  their  return  the  two  Polos 
found  that  Pope  Clement  IV.  had  just  died.  Such  were 
the  factions  among  the  cardinals  that  no  successor  was 
elected  for  three  years.  When  Gregory  was  chosen  in 
1271,  he  selected  Nicolas  of  Vicenza  and  William  of  Tri- 
poli, preaching  friars  and  "unquestionably  as  learned 
churchmen  as  were  to  be  found  in  that  day,"  to  accompany 
the  Polos,  now  joined  by  their  young  nephew,  Marco,  to 
the  Great  Khan.  But,  alas  for  the  missionary  zeal  of  the 
friars  !  they  fled  back  from  Layas  port  in  the  Levant. 
The  three  Venetians  in  due  time  reached  the  Khan,  who, 
instead  of  a  hundred  learned  and  zealous  Christians,  had 
to  be  content  with  "  oil  from  the  sepulchre  "  at  Jerusalem. 
Thus  an  opportunity  was  lost  for  Christianising  Asia, 
similar  to  that  which  Europe  was  allowed  in  the  persons 
of  Constantine  and  Clovis,  Vladimir  and  our  own 
^thelbert. 

21ie  Book  of  Ser  Marco  Polo,  the  Venetian,  concerning  the 
Kingdoms  and  Marvels  of  the  East,  as  newly  translated  and 
edited  with  learned  notes  by  the  late  Colonel  Sir  Henry 
Yule,  LL.D.  (2nd  edition,  1875),  gives  a  most  vivid,  de- 
tailed, and  accurate  picture  of  the  progress  and  the  position 
of  Nestorian  and  Roman  Christianity  towards  the  close  of 
the  thirteenth  century  under  the  tolerant  sway  of  the 
Great  Khan  of  Cathay  and  of  the  Hindu  sovereigns  of 
India.  As  one  of  Kublai  Khan's  governors  or  envoys 
Marco  Polo  twice  visited  India.  On  the  first  occasion  he 
approached  it  from  the  Chinese  side  of  Yunan,  and  spent 
some  time  in  the  province  of  Bangala,  which  was  probably 
the  modern  Burma  then  ruled  by  a  Bengal  dynasty,  and 
included  modern  Assam  and  Bengal  up  to  its  later  Musal- 
man  capital  of  Murshidabad.  At  a  later  time  he  not  only 
visited  but  dwelt  in  several  of  the  cities  and  countries  of 
Southern  India,  regarding  which,  their  Brahmans  and  their 
Christians,  he  gives  us  wonderfully  correct  information. 
Finally,  when  he,  his  father,  and  uncle  were  reluctantly 
permitted  by  the  Great  Khan  to  leave  Cathay  in  charge  of 
a  bride  for  Arghun,  Khan  of  Persia,  he  touched  at  Ceylon 
and  the  extreme  south  of  India  again.     On  his  way  to 


THE  ROMAN  ATTEMPT  3< 

Hormuz  and  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf  he  became 
acquainted  with  the  Malabar  coast  and  Western  India  as 
far  as  Mekran,  to  say  nothing  of  Madagascar,  Sokotra,  the 
east  coast  of  Africa  up  to  Abyssinia,  and  the  islands  of  the 
Indian  Ocean.  The  port  from  which  he  started  in  1292 
was  Zayton,  now  Chin  Chan  in  Fokien,  which  has  given  to 
our  language  the  word  Satin.  He  tells  us  of  eleven  coun- 
tries, in  most  of  which  he  describes  Christian  churches, 
using  such  a  sentence  as  this — "  The  people  are  idolaters, 
but  there  are  also  some  Christians  and  some  Jews."  The 
eleven,  in  their  proper  geographical  order  and  present 
names,  are  these,  following  the  coast  of  the  Indian  penin- 
sula from  east  to  west,  from  the  Bay  of  Bengal  to  the 
Persian  Gulf  : —  Telingana,  Madras,  Tan j or,  Tinnevelli, 
Comorin,  Quilon,  Cannanor,  Bombay,  Cambay,  Somnath, 
and  Mekran.  Marco  Polo  tells  also  the  same  story  of 
the  diamonds  of  Golconda  guarded  by  serpents,  and  ob- 
tained by  throwing  down  pieces  of  flesh  which  are  carried 
off  by  eagles,  that  has  become  well  known  through  the 
Arabian  Nights.  The  earliest  mention  of  this  legend  is 
by  St.  Epiphanius,  Bishop  of  Salamis  in  Cyprus,  who  tells 
it  of  the  jacinth  in  his  account  of  the  twelve  jewels  in 
the  breastplate  of  the  Jewish  high  priest. 

The  rivalry  of  the  Romanist  and  Nestorian  Churches, 
which  began  in  India  soon  after  Marco  Polo's  visit,  and 
the  gradual  apostasy  of  not  a  few  communities  abandoned 
by  the  mother  Church  and  without  spiritual  life,  is  seen  in 
his  account  of  the  Island  of  Sokotra.  There,  eleven  cen- 
turies before,  Pantsenus  had  found  earnest  disciples  of  the 
apostolic  school,  and  had  confirmed  them  in  the  faith. 
Now  the  Venetian  traveller  writes,  "  Their  archbishop  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Pope  of  Eome,  but  is  subject  to  the 
great  Archbishop  who  lives  at  Baudas  (Baghdad).  He  rules 
over  the  bishop  of  that  island,  and  many  other  bishops  in 
those  regions  of  the  world,  just  as  our  Pope  does  in  these." 
Piracy  and  witchcraft  prevailed,  and  Islam  followed.  By 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  Carmelite  who 
visited  the  people  found  them  still  professing  to  be 
Christians,  but  following  rites  in  which  the  cross,  circum- 


38  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

cision,  and  sacrifices  to  the  moon,  were  horribly  jumbled 
without  knowledge.  Now  the  only  trace  of  Christian  in- 
fluence in  the  savage  Mohammedan  island  protected  by  the 
British  Empire,  is  found  in  the  name  of  the  village  Coles- 
seah,  which  is  believed  to  embody  the  Greek  ekklesia. 
Sokotra  is  at  once  a  living  example  of  the  failure  of  a  false 
or  imperfect  Christianity  to  regenerate  a  people,  and  a 
warning  to  the  evangelical  Church  to  bear  and  have 
patience,  and  for  the  Name's  sake  to  labour  and  not 
to  faint,  as  our  Lord  declared  to  Ephesus,  and  again  to 
Laodicea — "  be  zealous  and  repent." 

The  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  was,  alike  in 
India  and  Cathay,  a  time  of  Franciscan  and  Dominican 
missionary  enterprise  and  Latin  comm.ercial  activity.  The 
Mongol  domination  kept  Islam  in  check,  and  promoted 
toleration  all  over  Asia.  Marco  Polo's  spirit  and  example, 
the  wealth  he  brought,  and  the  stories  he  told,  stirred  up 
many  followers.  John  of  Monte  Corvino  was,  after  him, 
the  first  of  a  band  of  missionaries  eager  to  win  the  Budd- 
hist, Mohammedan,  and  Nestorian  alike  to  allegiance  to 
the  Pope,  who  made  him  Archbishop  of  Peking  and  Patri- 
arch of  a  wide  region,  with  the  approval  of  the  Great 
Khan.  He  was  the  first  to  begin  Roman  Catholic  missions 
in  India.  From  the  crowd  of  monkish  annalists  and  adven- 
turous travellers,  who  have  left  narratives  of  their  ex- 
perience, two  missionaries  stand  out.  Friar  Jordanus  and 
Friar  Odoricus,  in  the  century  which  transferred  the 
command  of  the  commerce  and  the  Christianity  of  the 
people  of  India  from  the  illustrious  republics  of  Italy  to  the 
maritime  enterprise  and  fanatical  intolerance  of  Portugal. 

Jordanus,  a  Dominican  born  at  S6verac,  near  Toulouse, 
was  twice  in  India.  He  wrote  the  Mirabilia  Descripta,  or 
the  Wonders  of  the  East,  translated  by  Sir  Henry  Yule,  with 
a  commentary,  for  the  Hakluyt  Society.  We  have  also 
two  of  his  Latin  letters.  The  first  was  addressed  to  his 
Dominican  brethren  and  to  Franciscan  missionaries  then  at 
Tabreez  and  two  other  cities  in  North  Persia,  since  made 
famous  by  the  hardships  of  Henry  Martyn  and  the  toils 
of  the  American  missionaries  on  the  plain  east  of  Lake 


THE   ROMAN   ATTEMPT  39 

Ooroomia.  He  urges  the  despatch  of  missionaries  to  the 
three  cities  in  Western  and  Southern  India — of  Sup6ra  or 
Surat,  Paroco  or  Broach,  and  Columbum  or  Quilon. 
Thereupon  the  Dominican  Nicolaus  Romanus  at  once  left 
Persia  for  India.  The  second  letter,  written  three  years 
after,  describes  his  own  journey  from  Tabreez  and  voyage 
to  Quilon,  reversing  the  route  followed  by  Henry  Martyn 
five  centuries  later,  when  he  took  the  Word  of  God  to  the 
Persians.  After  a  year  at  Columbum  or  Quilon  Jordanus 
seems  to  have  returned,  and  to  have  been  sent  out  again  as 
Bishop  of  Columbum  in  1430.  The  bull  of  Pope  John 
XXII.  commends  the  new  prelate  to  the  goodwill  of  .the 
Christians,  and  invites  the  Nascarine  or  Nazarani,  the  name 
of  the  Syrian  Christians  to  this  day,  to  abjure  their  schism 
and  enter  the  unity  of  the  (R.)  Catholic  Church.  On 
the  way  out  Jordanus  was  entrusted  with  the  pallium 
for  the  Archbishop  of  Sultania,  between  Tabreez  and 
Tehran,  the  old  Persian  capital  to  which  ecclesiastically 
Columbum  was  subject,  and  the  ruined  camp  at  which,  we 
may  add,  the  dying  Martyn  in  vain  sought  audience  of 
the  vShah  that  he  might  present  his  Persian  New  Testa- 
ment. 

Jordanus  was  a  true  missionary,  as  appears  from  the 
whole  tone  of  his  curious  book.  He  describes  the  Parsees, 
the  casteless  aborigines,  the  Hindu  worship  of  idols,. and  the 
iconoclasm  of  the  Mohammedan  invaders  from  Mahmood 
of  Chazni's  time.  He  is  the  first  to  note  the  instinctive 
apprehension  called  prophecy  and  fully  realised  by 
England  in  the  Mutiny  of  1857,  thus — "The  pagans  of 
this  India  have  prophecies  of  their  own  that  we  Latins  are 
to  subjugate  the  whole  world."  After  his  survey  of  the 
non-Christian  peoples,  closing  with  the  words,  "  'Tis  grief 
to  hear  and  woe  to  see,"  Jordanus  goes  on,  "  In  this  India 
there  is  a  scattered  people,  one  here  another  there,  who' 
call  themselves  Christians,  but  are  not  so,  nor  have  they 
baptism,  nor  do  they  know  anything  else  about  the  faith ; 
nay,  they  believe  St.  Thomas  the  Great  to  be  Christ ! 
There  I  baptized  and  brought  into  the  faith  about  three 
hundred  souls,  of  whom  many  were  idolaters  and  Saracens. 


40  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

And  let  me  tell  you  that  among  the  idolaters  a  man  may 
with  safety  expound  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  nor  is  any  one 
among  the  idolaters  hindered  from  being  baptized  through- 
out all  the  East."  The  conclusion  to  which  the  zealous 
missionary  comes  is  this,  that  while  there  is  no  land  equal 
to  Christendom,  "and  above  all  we  have  the  true  faith 
though  it  be  ill  kept,"  "  as  God  is  my  witness,  ten  times 
better  Christians  and  more  charitable  withal  be  those  who 
be  converted  by  the  preaching  and  Minor  friars  to  our  faith 
than  our  own  folk  here,  as  experience  hath  taught  me." 

Jordanus  was  full  of  loyalty  to  the  Master's  command, 
of  faith  in  His  promise,  and  love  to  the  souls  for  whom  He 
died,  presenting  in  all  this  a  delightful  contrast  to  the 
Abb6  Dubois  of  the  same  Church  and  region  a  century 
ago.  The  friar's  closing  words  are  a  summons  to  all 
Christians — "  Of  the  conversion  of  those  nations  of  India 
I  say^  this,  that  if  there  were  two  or  three  hundred  good 
friars  who  would  faithfully  and  fervently  preach  the 
Catholic  faith,  there  is  not  a  year  which  would  not  see 
more  than  X.  thousand  persons  converted  to  the  Christian 
faith.  For  whilst  I  was  among  those  schismatics  and  unbe- 
lievers, I  believe  that  more  than  X.  thousand  or  thereabout 
were  converted  to  our  faith ;  and  because  we,  being  few  in 
number,  could  not  occupy  or  even  visit  many  parts  of  the 
land,  many  souls  (wo  is  me  !)  have  perished,  and  exceeding 
many  do  perish  for  lack  of  preachers  of  the  word  of  the 
Lord."  Then  after  describing  that  contemporary  burst  of 
proselytising  zeal  which  carried  the  Koran  to  Sumatra  and 
Java, — Mohammedan  ever  since, — Jordanus  relates  how  he 
had  been  four  times  cast  into  prison  by  the  .Mohammedans. 
"  How  many  times  I  have  had  my  hair  plucked  out  and 
been  scourged  and  been  stoned  God  Himself  knoweth 
and  I,  who  had  to  bear  all  this  for  my  sins,  yet  have  not 
attained  to  end  my  life  as  a  martyr  for  the  faith  as  did 
four  of  my  brethren !  Nay,  five  preaching  friars  and  four 
Minors  were  there  in  my  time  cruelly  slain  for  the 
Catholic  faith.  Wo  is  me  that  I  was  not  with  them 
there ! " 

This  introduces  us  to  the  story  of  the  Four  Martyrs 


THE  ROMAN   ATTEMPT  41 

of  Thana,  near  Bombay,  which  is  the  brightest  episode  in 
the  generally  dark  history  of  early  Romanist  missions  in 
India,  after  allowing  for  the  legendary  allegorical  language 
in  which  it  has  been  preserved  to  us.  We  find  the  details 
in  a  chronicle  of  the  fourteenth  century  purporting  to  have 
been  written  by  Jordanus,  and  the  main  facts  are  vouched 
for  not  only  by  his  acknowledged  work,  but  by  his 
contemporary  Odoricus  and  successor  John  de  Marignola. 

Sent  by  the  Pope,  then  residing  at  Avignon,  Jordanus 
and  his  band  of  missionaries  preached  their  way  through 
Persia,  departed  from  Hormuz,  landed  at  Diu  off  the  north 
coast  of  Bombay,  and  thence  sailed  to  Thana  in  1321.  They 
found  the  Mohammedan  fury  at  its  height.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  Jordanus  on  a  preaching  tour  to  the  north,  the 
four  missionaries,  who  were  Franciscans, — Thomas,  James, 
Demetrius,  and  Peter, — were  accused  by  one  Yusuf  before 
the  governor,  and  boldly  defended  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  Sonship  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  so  obnoxious  to 
the  unitarians  of  Islam.  They  were  sentenced  to  death 
by  fire.  The  youngest,  James  of  Padua,  to  quote  the 
chronicler,  "  a  young  wrestler  for  Christ,  incontinently 
went  into  the  fire  and  abode  in  it  until  it  was  well-nigh 
spent,  rejoicing  and  uttering  praise,  and  without  any  burn- 
ing of  his  hair  even,  or  of  the  cloth  of  his  gown."  Stripped 
of  his  garment  which,  according  to  the  Mussulman  tradi- 
tion, was  that  of  Abraham,  who  when  cast  into  the  flames 
at  Chaldsea  took  no  hurt,  the  young  confessor  was  again 
thrown  into  the  furnace,  but  without  harm.  The  four 
were  then  set  free,  but  were  the  night  following  despatched 
to  the  joys  of  heaven.  Hastily  returning  to  Thana,  Jor- 
danus, helped  by  a  Genoese  merchant  there,  removed  the 
precious  remains  to  old  Surat,  and  buried  them  in  a 
church  there.  Odoric,  the  Bohemian,  a  wandering  saint, 
accompanied  by  an  Irishman,  Friar  James,  arrived  at 
Surat  a  year  after,  and  carried  off  the  ashes  of  the  four 
martyrs  on  his  fourteen  years  voyaging  to  Peking,  and 
through  Central  Asia  to  Padua,  where  he  told  his  long  story, 
as  translated  by  Sir  Henry  Yule.  To  the  expressed  annoy- 
ance of  that  great  scholar  and  good  Christian,  Odoric  was 


42  THE  CONVERSION   OP   INDIA 

made  a  beatus  or  semi-saint  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
although  he  showed  little  of  the  self-consecration  of  John 
of  Monte  Corvino  and  Jordanus.  A  quaint  bas-relief  at 
his  shrine  at  Udine  represents  a  friar  of  sixty  with  a 
Socratic  countenance  preaching  to  the  people  of  India,  while 
a  cherub  pours  a  cataract  of  water  on  the  adoring  crowd. 

We  may  pass  over  the  not  infrequent  references  to 
Christianity  in  India  by  Ibn  Batuta,  of  Tangier,  the 
remarkable  Mohammedan  traveller  in  1324;  by  Mcolo 
Conti,  the  Venetian,  who  apostatised  to  save  his  life  in 
1419-1440;  by  Abd-er-Ruzzak,  at  the  same  time,  who  found 
a  Christian  as  vizier  of  the  sultan  of  Yijayanagar ;  by  the 
Russian  Nikitin  (1468-1474),  who  recorded  that  he  had 
already  passed  the  fourth  great  day  in  a  Musalman 
country  and  had  not  renounced  Christianity ;  by  the 
Genoese  merchant  Hieronomo  di  Santo  Stefano  (1494- 
1499),  and  by  the  Bolognese  Ludovico  Varthema  (1503- 
1508),  who  witnessed  the  decadence  of  the  Syrian  and 
the  advent  of  the  Romanist  power  of  Portugal.  From 
west  and  east  India  is  about  to  be  approached  by  sea. 
Columbus  and  Da  Gama  are  at  hand. 

Hitherto  we  have  traced  the  faihire  of  missionary 
Christianity  because  of  its  giving  forth  an  uncertain  or  a 
false  sound  on  the  central  message  of  Jesus  Christ,  or 
because  of  its  using  political  methods  and  unspiritual 
weapons  which  our  Lord  Himself  denounced.  Buddhism 
and  Islam  prevailed  in  Asia  accordingly.  Now  we  come 
to  the  first  example  in  history  of  the  union  of  the  gospel 
with  science,  or  the  use  of  scientific  discovery  and 
ascertained  truth  by  Christianity.  In  the  historical 
providence  of  God,  geography  and  the  gospel  have  worked 
together  in  a  holy  and  fruitful  alliance  all  through  the 
three  centuries  from  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator  and 
Christopher  Columbus  to  AYalter  Raleigh,  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  William  Carey,  and  David  Livingstone.  In  these 
men  we  see  ScrijDture  and  science  united  sincerely  and 
reverently  to  bring  the  world  to  Christ.  Of  them  all  are 
the  w^ords  of  Henry  Yule,  that  great  Christian  oflBcer  and 
geographer,  true — their  genius  and  lofty  enthusiasm,  their 


THE  ROMAN   ATTEMPT  43 

ardent  and  justified  previsions  mark  them  as  "  lights  of 
the  human  race."  To  the  landing  of  Carey,  son  of  the 
English  wool-weaver,  at  Calcutta  on  the  10th  November 
1793,  as  to  that  of  Columbus,  son  of  the  Genoese  wool- 
weaver,  on  the  (West)  Indian  Island  of  Guanahani  three 
centuries  before,  we  may  apply  the  words  in  which  the 
"  Christ-carrier  "  closed  the  letter  reporting  his  first  voyage 
— "  Our  Eedeemer  hath  granted  this  victory  ...  an 
event  of  such  high  importance  in  which  all  Christendom 
ought  to  rejoice,  and  which  it  ought  to  celebrate  with 
great  festivals  and  the  offering  of  solemn  thanks  to  the 
Holy  Trinity,  with  many  solemn  prayers  both  for  the 
great  exaltation  which  may  accrue  ....  in  turning  many 
nations  to  our  holy  faith,  and  also  for  the  temporal 
benefits  which  will  bring  great  refreshment  and  gain 
....  to  all  Christians." 

To  that  noble  Prince  of  Portugal,  Henry  the  Naviga- 
tor (great-grandson  of  Edward  HI.  of  England),  who 
chose  as  his  motto,  "Talent  de  Bien  Faire,"  or  "the 
desire  to  do-  good,"  we  owe  the  discovery  of  the  Cape 
route  to  India.  AVhen  Cape  Bojador  was  passed — the 
first  step  in  the  history  of  African  and  Indian  discovery 
by  the  east — Prince  Henry  besought  the  Virgin  that  she 
"  would  guide  and  set  forth  the  doings  in  this  discovery 
to  the  praise  and  glory  of  God,  and  to  the  increase  of  His 
holy  faith."  Columbus,  as  the  servant  of  Spain  after  His 
own  Genoa  had  refused  his  offer — Henry  VII.  of  England 
having  sent  his  favourable  answer  too  late — determined, 
with  a  fanatical  resolution,  to  reach  India  by  the  west, 
beginning  with  his  countryman  Marco  Polo's  islands  of 
Ohipangu  (Japan)  and  Antilla.  These  were  represented 
in  the  chart  of  his  learned  correspondent,  Toscanelli  of 
Florence,  as  midway  between  the  coasts  of  Europe  and 
Africa  on  the  east  and  the  coasts  of  Asia  on  the  west. 
Marco  Polo  had  written  of  these  people  as  idolaters,  and 
"  concerning  the  fashion  of  the  idols,"  the  deeds  ascribed 
to  which  are  "  such  a  parcel  of  devilries  as  it  is  best  not 
to  tell."  Columbus  burned  to  convert  them  to  Christ, 
and  he  took  with  him  a  letter  as  ambassador  from  Spain 


44  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

to  the  Grand  Khan  of  Cathay  with  this  object.^  The 
illustrious  admiral  sailed  under  the  green  cross,  a  banner 
of  his  own  device ;  he  took  possession  of  new  lands  with 
"  immense  thanksgivings  to  Almighty  God,"  with  solemn 
services  and  an  immediate  effort  to  instruct  the  natives ; 
he  carried  home  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  nine  of  the 
native  Indians  for  baptism. 

Christopher  Columbus,  in  truth,  was  the  first  and 
greatest  Christian  missionary  in  action,  as  his  contempo- 
rary, Erasmus,  was  in  writing  and  in  translating  the  New 
Testament.  But  he  was  as  sternly  and  narrowly  a 
member  of  the  Church  of  Eome  as  the  missionary  bishop 
Las  Casas,  whose  father  sailed  with  him,  and  who  ecclesi- 
astically followed  him.  By  their  discoveries  .  through 
Portugal  and  Spain,  Prince  Henry  and  Columbus  began 
the  counter-reformation  which  the  Society  of  Jesus  was 
soon  after  chartered  by  the  Pope  Paul  III.  to  carry  on, 
along  with  the  older  monastic  orders.  For  the  three 
centuries,  from  Columbus  to  Carey,  foreign  missions  were 
identified  with  the  intolerant  and  sacramentarian  form  of 
Christianity,  if  we  except  the  small  Moravian  society  of 
Germany  in  the  later  years  of  that  period.  According  to 
the  teaching  and  practical  action  of  the  great  discoverers, 
not  to  be  in  the  Church  was  to  be  without  the  only 
true  and  saving  faith,  was  to  be  certain  of  hell.  Even 
Columbus,  who  was  so  pious  that  "  for  fasting  and  saying 
all  the  divine  office  he  might  be  thought  professed  in  some 
religious  order,"  who  wrote  Latin  prayers,  and  used  as  his 
cipher  a  seven-lettered  device  based  on  his  name  Christopher, 
reported  it  as  the  drawback  of  his  distant  voyages,  that  he 
was  so  far  away  from  the  holy  sacraments  of  the  Holy 
Church  as  to  be  out  of  salvation  if  he  were  to  die.  "  Weep 
for  me,  ye  that  are  charitable  to  me  or  just,"  he  wrote. 

This  ritualistic  conviction  became  the  source  of,  as  it 

^  Let  due  record  be  given  to  the  name  of  the  monk,  Antonio  de 
Marchena,  who,  in  the  seckision  of  La  Rabida,  first  fired  Columbus 
with  the  missionary  idea  at  the  time  when  the  Mohammedans  and 
the  Jews  were  being  expelled  from  Spain.  See  the  Life  of  Columhus 
(the  best)  by  Clements  Markham,  C.B.  (1892). 


THE   ROMAN   ATTEMPT  45 

was  the  apology  for,  every  form  of  intolerance  and  even 
crime  at  the  hands  of  otherwise  good  men.  Like  Saul, 
the  early  explorers  verily  thought  they  did  God  service 
when  they  persecuted  the  dark  races.  He  who  had  called 
the  first  island  he  discovered  San  Salvador,  and  had 
reported  that  its  people  "would  easily  be  converted  to 
Christianity,"  became  unconsciously,  but  not  the  less  really, 
the  originator  of  the  slave-trade.  "To  the  first  island 
that  I  found  I  gave  the  name  San  Salvador,  in  remem- 
brance of  His  High  Majesty,  who  hath  marvellously 
brought  all  these  things  to  pass."  Of  the  natives  he 
wrote  :  "  I  gave  away  a  thousand  good  and  pretty  articles 
which  I  had  brought  with  me,  in  order  to  win  their 
affection,  and  that  they  might  be  led  to  become  Christians. 
They  believe  that  all  power,  and  indeed  all  good  things, 
are  in  heaven ;  and  they  are  firmly  convinced  that  I,  with 
my  vessels  and  crews,  came  from  heaven."  His  second 
expedition  took  out  Father  Buil  and  other  Benedictines 
to  La  Navidad,  the  colony  he  had  founded  in  Hispaniola 
or  Hayti,  that  they  might  "bring  the  dwellers  in  the 
Indies  to  a  knowledge  of  the  holy  Catholic  faith  lovingly." 
Alas  !  he  found  the  colony  broken  up  and  its  stragglers 
attacked  by  the  Carib  "  cannibals."  He  founded  another 
in  a  different  part  of  the  island,  calling  it  Isabella,  and 
sent  home  to  the  sovereigns  of  Spain  a  report,  dated 
January  1494,  of  which  we  have  the  copy  with  the 
marginal  orders  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  He  declares 
that  he  has  sent  home  some  Indians  from  the  Cannibal 
Islands  as  slaves  to  be  taught  Castillian,  and  so  to  become 
interpreters  able  to  carry  on  the  work  of  conversion.  He 
proposes  that,  "for  the  advantage  of  their  souls,"  such 
slaves  be  sent  in  payment  of  the  cargoes  required  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  colony.  "Los  Eeyes"  reply  that 
both  the  cannibals  and  the  peaceful  Indians  of  the  colony 
should  be  brought  to  the  holy  Catholic  faith  "  there  "  or  on 
the  spot,  and  disapprove  of  the  despatch  of  slaves.  We 
must  not  judge  Columbus  entirely  by  the  standard  of  our 
own  day.  But  that  unfortunate  despatch  of  1494  was, 
historically,  the  beginning  of  what,  under  the  colour  of 


46  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

missionary  motives,  has  ever  since  been  the  greatest  crime 
against  humanity.  Soon  Africans  took  the  place  of  the 
weak  Indians.  To  this  day,  unhappily,  slave -buying 
and  slave-owning  is  one  of  the  missionary  methods  of  the 
Latin  Church  in  Africa,  as  it  used  to  be  in  America  and  in 
the  dark  ages  of  Europe. 

On  the  20th  May  1506,  at  the  age  of  threescore  and 
ten,  Columbus  entered  into  rest,  after  acts  of  penitence 
and  faith,  saying,  in  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate,  "  Into  thy 
hands,  0  Lord,  I  commend  my  spirit."  From  Yalladolid, 
and  Seville,  and  from  San  Domingo,  his  dust  and  that  of 
his  son,  Don  Diego,  were  successively  conveyed  to  Cuba, 
where,  in  the  cathedral  of  the  Havana,  they  were, last 
interred  in  solemn  state  in  the  year  1795.  The  wrongs 
suffered  by  the  great  admiral,  culminating  after  his  death 
in  the  giving  of  the  name  of  a  Florentine  contractor, 
Vespucci  Amerigo,  to  the  New  "World,  may  be  held  to 
atone  for  the  one  blot  on  the  purity,  the  nobility,  and  the 
everlasting  memory  of  Christopher  Columbus.  He  opened 
the  widest  of  all  doors  to  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  so 
that  we  may  well  commemorate. the  great  admiral  on  the 
missionary  as  on  the  geographical  side  of  his  unique 
achievement.  This  Italian,  having  vainly  offered  himself 
to  England  as  well  as  Genoa,  went  forth  from  Spain  to 
discover  India  by  the  west,  and  to  Christianise  Japan  and 
China.  By  no  accident,  but  in  the  almost  fanatical  faith 
which  is  fed  by  knowledge,^  he  revealed  the  New  World, 

1  In  the  remarkable  description  he  gave  of  himself  to  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  in  the  year  1501,  Columbus  wrote  :  "At  a  very  early  age 
I  became  a  sailor,  and  a  sailor  I  have  been  ever  since.  ...  I  have 
held  traffic  and  converse  with  the  wise  and  prudent,  churchmen  and 
laymen,  Latins  and  Greeks,  Jews  and  Moors,  and  many  others  of  other 
persuasions.  I  found  the  Lord  to  be  gracious  to  my  desire,  and  re- 
ceived from  Him  the  spirit  of  understanding.  .  .  .  During  this  time 
have  I  seen,  and  made  it  my  study  to  see,  all  writings,  cosmography, 
histories,  chronicles,  philosophies,  and  other  arts,  so  that  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  plainly  opened  my  understanding  to  see  that  it  was  possible 
to  sail  from  hence  to  the  Indies,  and  set  on  fire  my  will  for  the 
execution  thereof."  To  the  last  CoUunbus  believed  that  it  was  the* 
Indies  he  had  found. 


THE   ROMAN   ATTEMPT  47 

not  only  of  still  Eomanist  Mexico  and  South  America, 
but  of  what  is  now  prevailingly  Protestant  Canada  and 
the  United  States.  The  event  of  the  12th  October  1492 
meant  the  birth  of  the  greatest  evangelical  and  evangelising 
people  of  1893  and  the  coming  century. 

Luther  was  a  young  monk  of  twenty -three  when 
Columbus  died.  From  his  awakening,  down  to  the  work 
of  Carey  in  Serampore,  during  three  centuries  the  Reformed 
Churches  were  asleep  as  to  missions,  spending  their  strength 
in  internal  dissension.  Like  the  German  Lutherans,  who 
had  created  the  Unitas  Fratrum,  he  went  out  of  the  Church 
to  form  his  missionary  organisation.  Calmly  surveying 
the  fruits  of  the  discoveries  of  Columbus  and  his  successors 
when,  as  a  shoemaker,  he  sat  on  his  stall  and  made  his  map 
of  the  world  and  taught  the  village  children,  Carey  resolved 
to  translate  the  Word  of  God  into  the  languages  of  the  dark 
races,  as  John  Eliot  had  begun  to  do  for  the  Red  Indians, 
whose  ancestors  Columbus  had  unwittingly  enslaved.  AVell 
might  Wilberforce,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  pronounce 
this  a  sublime  conception.  As  Columbus  had  brooded  over 
the  idea  of  new  lands  in  the  west  to  be  won  for  the  Church 
of  his  day,  and  proved  the  idea  a  fact,  so  Carey's  heart 
burned  within  him,  even  from  boyhood,  when  he  read  the 
story  of  Captain  Cook's  completion  of  the  exploring  work 
of  Columbus  in  that  Pacific  Ocean,  where  not  only  Japan 
but  a  thousand  islands  were  waiting  for  the  good  news  of 
God.  Like  the  Genoese  sailor,  the  English  shoemaker 
organised  his  expedition  for  the  conversion  of  India,  and 
led  it  himself  all  through  the  years  till  he  saw  its  early 
fruition.  Columbus  sought  the  East  Indies  and  Cathay, 
and  he  found  the  West  Indies  and  America  that  the  great 
western  people  might  become  in  our  time  one  of  the  true 
evangelisers  of  India.^     The  Nestorians  first,  and  then  the 

^  The  latest  writer  on  tlie  discovery  of  America,  in  the  Qiuirterly 
Review  for  July  1893,  remarks  :  ''  In  that  astonishing  series  of  events 
which  have  broken  the  sword  of  Islam,  subdued  Asia  under  Christian 
influences,  and  made  Europeans  the  conquering  and  civilising  race 
among  men,  Columbus  has  proved  himself  a  mighty  leader.  Enthu- 
siasm like  his  works  miracles  of  which  science  reaps  the  fi'uits." 


48  THE  CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

Latin  preacliing  friars,  had  failed  to  commend  Christ  to 
the  Hindu,  the  Buddhist,  and  the  Mohammedan  of  Southern 
Asia.  A  third  attempt  was  to  be  made  by  Portugal 
through  the  Jesuit  order,  by  Francis  Xavier,  Aleixo 
Menezes,  and  Eobert  de  Nobilibus. 

On  the  20th  May  1498  Yasco  da  Gama,  having  in  a 
voyage  of  eleven  months  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
and  coasted  along  East  Africa,  landed  at  Calicut.  It  was 
a  momentous  event,  second  only  to  the  action  of  Columbus 
six  years  before.  The  Pope,  the  worst  of  the  whole  line, 
Alexander  Borgia,  had  distributed  the  undiscovered  world 
outside  of  Christendom  between  Spain  and  Portugal  by 
his  famous  Bull,  thus  asserting  the  most  extensive  practical 
missionary  policy  in  all  history  up  to  that  time.  The 
King  of  Portugal  was  constituted  by  the  supreme  Christian 
authority  of  his  day  "Lord  of  the  Navigation,  Conquest, 
and  Trade  of  Ethiopia,  Arabia,  Persia,  and  India."  What 
in  two  voyages  Yasco  da  Gama  began,  Albuquerque  and 
Almeida,  the  first  viceroy,  gradually  formed  into  an 
Eastern  empire,  which  had  one  justification  to  set 
against  its  iniquities.  It  beat  back  the  pressure  of 
Solyman  the  Magnificent  from  Constantinople,  and  of  the 
Sultan  of  Egypt  from  Alexandria,  to  keep  sealed  up  the 
trade  of  India  which,  for  the  eighteen  hundred  years  since 
Alexander  the  Great,  had  enriched  both  powers,  and 
Yenice  and  Genoa  as  their  partners  and  middlemen. 
Portugal,  all  unwittingly,  prevented  the  destruction  of 
Christendom  by  "a  colossal  military  empire  on  the 
Bosporus  commanding  the  avenues  of  Asiatic  trade,"  ^ 
which  might  have  postponed  for  centuries  alike  the 
Eeformation  of  the  Church  and  the  spread  of  the  English- 
speaking  race  propagating  the  Reformed  faith.  Portugal, 
happily,  could  not  keep  the  trade  which  it  was  the  first 
to  divert  to  the  natural  channel  of  the  ocean,  because  it 
did  not  prove  worthy  to  be  entrusted  with  the  faith,  which 
it  used  for  selfish  ends  and  degraded  by  unspiritual  com- 
promises.    Absorbed  for  a  time  in  Spain,  its  decadence 

1  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  on  The  Rise  of  the  British  Dominion  in  India, 
London  (Murray),  1893. 


THE  ROMAN  ATTEMPT  49 

went  on,  step  by  step,  as  first  the  Dutch  Eepublic  and 
then  the  England  of  Queen  Elizabeth  opened  wide  the 
doors  of  the  East  and  the  West,  Avhich  Philip  II.  vainly 
tried  to  shut  again  with  an  intolerance  like  that  of  the 
Turk  before  him. 

Portugal  had  planted  its  trading  forts  on  Ihe  shores  of 
Western  and  Southern  India  for  forty  years  before  it 
became  a  proselytising  power.  Its  first  centre,  at  Calicut, 
was  not  far  to  the  north  of  Cochin,  in  the  ancient  town  of 
which,  now  known  as  Cranganor,  first  the  Jews  and  then 
the  Christians,  both  apostolic  and  Nestorian,  had  formed 
settlements.  One  of  the  many  adventurers  who  followed 
Da  Gama — Pedro  Alvares  Cabral — having  seized  the  place 
became  acquainted  with  the  Syrian  Christians.  Two 
of  them  about  to  visit  their  Patriarch  at  Mosul,  named 
Matthias  and  Joseph,  were  taken  by  Cabral  to  Lisbon, 
en  route  to  Persia,  and  these  were  the  first  Christians  of 
India  seen  in  Europe.  The  ^ elder  died  there,  and  the 
younger,  when  at  Venice  on  his  further  journey,  wrote  an 
account  of  his  co-religionists  and  of  his  travels  in  a  Latin 
work  entitled  Voyages  of  Josej^h  the  Indian,'^  and  returned  to 
India  by  Lisbon.  Though  no  more  a  missionary  Church 
in  the  aggressive  sense  than  their  fathers,  the  Malabar 
Christians  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  a 
prosperous  and  even  powerful  community.  For  military 
and  political  services  to  the  rajas  of  Cochin  they  enjoyed 
all  the  privileges  of  a  protected  caste.  They  even  aspired 
to  sovereign  nationality  on  their  own  account  at  an  early 
period,  having  a  tradition  that  Beliarte  was  the  first  of  a 
line  of  Christian  kings  who  governed  from  Udiampoor,  a 
few  miles  south-east  of  Ernakolam,  the  Cochin  capital, 
where,  alas !  the  Portuguese  archbishop,  Menezes,  was  to 
destroy  their  spiritual  independence  by  the  decrees  of  his 
Latin  Synod  of  Diamper  in  1599. 

We  are  thus  introduced  to  the  two  men,  the  Spanish 
Francis  Xavier  and  the  Portuguese  Aleixo  de  Menezes, 
who,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  spread  in  South  India  Latin 

^  Histoire  Du  Christianisme  des  hides.  Par  il.  V.  La  Croze.  A  la 
Haye,  1758,  2  vols. 

E 


50  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

Christianity  in  its  most  debased  form, — the  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, with  a  pure  zeal  which  has  placed  him  in  the 
Romish  Calendar  beside  the  apostle  St.  Thomas,  and  the 
archbishop,  with  a  fanatical  intolerance  which  devised  the 
tortures  of  the  Inquisition  and  ended  in  the  extinction  of 
the  Eastern  empire  of  his  country. 


IV 


FRANCIS   XAVIER   AND   HIS   SUCCESSORS — 
THE   DUTCH   ATTEMPT 

"  If  ye  he  dead  with  Christ  from  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  why,  as 
though  living  in  the  world,  are  ye  subject  to  ordinances,  after  the  com- 
mandments and  doctrines  of  men  ?  " — Col.  ii.  20,  22. 

Periodically  the  city  of  Old  Goa  is  filled  by  crowds  of 
Roman  Catholics,  who  present  the  sad  spectacle  in  the 
midst  of  an  idolatrous  people  of  the  worship  of  a  mummy. 
A  body,  said  to  be  that  of  the  good  and  great  Francis 
Xavier,  is  exhibited  in  the  cathedral  to  deluded  votaries, 
who  for  days  defile  before  the  repulsive  object  in  solemn 
adoration.  Pompous  ceremonies  and  gay  festivities  add 
to  the  spectacle,  and  there  are  not  a  few  who  declare  that 
the  mummy  has  healed  them  of  their  diseases.  Could 
Xavier  himself  address  the  deluded  people,  he  would 
reprove  them  as  he  did  those  who  eulogised  him  during 
his  life.  "  What !  "  he  replied  to  friends  who  asked  him 
if  it  was  true  that  he  had  raised  a  dead  child  to  life,  "  I 
raise  the  dead  !  '  Can  you  really  believe  such  a  thing  of  a 
wretch  like  me'?"  Yet  half  a  century  after  his  death 
a  solemn  conclave  of  all  the  dignitaries  of  Romish 
Christendom,  presided  over  by  Pope  Urban  VIIL,  cited 
miracles  such  as  this  as  a  ground  for  canonising  one  who 
was  a  saint  in  a  far  truer  sense  than  many  in  the  Calendar. 
As  time  passed  on  the  legends  by  which  his  Church 
obscured  the  real  glories  of  Xavier  were  disbelieved,  but 
even  Protestant  writers  like  Sir  James  Stephen  showed,  in 


52  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

dealing  with  his  character,  a  singular  carelessness  as  to 
historic  truth.  This  writer  in  his  Essays  in  Ecclesiastical 
Biography,  which  surpass  Macaulay's  in  interest  and  equal 
them  in  ability,  uses  all  his  eloquence  to  justify  the 
marvellous  stories  of  Xavier's  success  in  converting 
Asiatics,  and  of  the  facility  with  which  he  acquired  in  a 
few  years  languages  so  difficult  and  different  as  those  of 
the  western  and  eastern  coasts  of  India,  of  Malacca,  of  the 
Spice  Islands,  of  Japan,  and  of  China,  so  that  he  was  not 
only  able  to  preach  in  them  all,  but  to  hold  abstruse 
disquisitions  on  points  of  philosophy  with  the  bonzes  of 
Japan.  It  was  high  time  that  some  writer,  who  really 
venerated  the  character  of  Francis  Xavier,  and  had  charity 
enough  to  remember  who  it  was  that  reproved  His 
disciples  for  repudiating  the  acts  of  those  "  who  followed 
not  with  them,"  should  apply  to  the  records  of  the  saint's 
life  the  simplest  canons  of  historical  criticism.  This  was 
done  in  1862  by  the  late  Henry  Venn,i  ^jj^^  chiefly  in  the 
language  of  Xavier's  own  letters,  manages  to  tell  us  the 
whole  truth  as  it  had  never  been  told  before,  while  our 
regard  for  the  saint  as  a  man  and  a  missionary  becomes 
at  once  more  intelligent  and  intense.  The  Jesuits  have 
preserved  many  of  the  letters  of  the  greatest  ornament 
of  their  order.  In  1795  Father  Menchacha  carefully 
edited  them  in  chronological  order,  in  a  Latin  transla- 
tion, and  the  Bologna  edition,  containing  146  letters, 
is    in    all  respects    the    standard.      Mr.  Yenn  uses    this 

1  The  Missionary  Life  and  Labours  of  Francis  Xavier,  taken  from 
his  own  Correspondence,  with  a  Sketch  of  the  General  Results  of  Boman 
Catholic  Missions  among  the  Heathen.  By  Henry  Venn,  B.D., 
Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  Honorary  Secretary  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society.  London  (Longman),  1862.  With  this  work  should  be 
compared  one  published  in  1872  (Burns  and  Gates),  The  Life  and 
Letters  of  St.  Francis  Xavier.  By  Henry  James  Coleridge,  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus.  2  vols.  3rd  ed.,  1876.  See  also  The  Life  of  St. 
Francis  Xavier,  Apostle  of  the  Indies  and  Jajoan,  from  the  Italian 
of  D.  Bartoli  and  J.  P.  Maffei ;  especially  the  characteristic  preface 
by  the  Very  Eev.  F.  W.  Faber  of  the  Oratory,  London,  1858.  James 
Dryden,  the  poet's  brother,  translated  the  Life  of  Framis  Xavier  by 
Pere  Bonhours. 


xavier's  attempt  53 

and  the  French  translation  published  at  Brussels  in 
1838.  As  these  letters  were  written  at  different  times 
from  India,  not  only  to  friends  such  as  Loyola  and  the 
Portuguese  authorities  at  home,  but  to  his  brethren  in 
India,  they  show  us  the  whole  .man  in  his  greatest  and 
weakest  points,  while  they  describe  his  work  and  his  aims 
in  a  manner  which  throws  no  little  light  on  the  character 
of  Eoman  Catholic  missions  in  the  East. 

Xavier  narrowly  escaped  being  a  Protestant,  and 
throughout  the  whole  of  his  letters  a  conflict  is  visible 
between  that  higher  piety  which  finds  its  satisfaction  only 
in  intelligent  communion  with  God,  and  that  which  seeks 
it  in  mere  ritualism.  Born  in  1506,  in  the  kingdom  of 
Navarre,  his  youth  was  surrounded  by  Protestant  influ- 
ences. The  Court  of  Navarre,  over  which  the  sister  of 
Francis  I.  presided,  was  filled  with  Eeformers  from  Ger- 
many and  Switzerland,  who  used  not  the  weapons  of 
theological  lore,  but  the  lighter  artillery  of  satire  and  song. 
Pope  Leo  X.  had,  by  the  Concordat  of  1517,  struck  a 
temporary  blow  at  the  liberties  of  the  Galilean  Church ; 
but  in  the  year  1533,  so  far  had  a  spirit  of  toleration 
spread  that  Calvin  and  Cop,  the  Eector  of  the  University 
of  Paris,  were  so  bold  as  to  proclaim  the  new  doctrines  in 
the  face  of  the  whole  Sorbonne.  Xavier  as  a  youth  had 
entered  into  the  gay  and  literary  pursuits  of  the  Protestant 
Court  of  Navarre,  and  distinguished  himself  at  Paris  by 
his  ever-ready  witticisms  and  martial  spirit.  It  is  singular 
that,  at  the  very  time  he  was  expounding  Aristotle  to  the 
students  who  flocked  to  his  lectures,  Calvin  was  writing 
his  Institutes  in  the  same  city.  Had  that  stern  but 
large-minded  man,  at  that  time  hardly  out  of  boyhood, 
obtained  an  influence  over  young  Xavier,  early  impressions 
might  have  been  deepened,  and  there  would  have  been 
one  saint  less  in  the  Romish  Calendar  though  not  in  the 
Church  of  Christ.  But  Ignatius  Loyola  obtained  that 
influence,  and  in  the  first  letter  which  has  come  down  to 
us,  dated  from  Paris,  24th  March  1535,  Xavier,  writing  to 
his  brother  in  Spain,  defends  himself  and  Loyola  from 
certain  calumnies,  and  expresses  his  affectionate  gratitude 


54  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

to  Ms  friend  for  assisting  him  with  money  when  in  dis- 
tress, and  for  having  rescued  him  from  the  influence  of 
Protestant  teachers.  The  expression  is  remarkable  :  "  The 
benefit  Ignatius  Loyola  has  conferred  of  highest  value  is 
that  of  fortifying  my  youthful  imprudence  against  the 
deplorable  dangers  arising  from  my  familiarity  with  men 
breathing  out  heresy;  such  as  are  many  of  my  contem- 
poraries in  Paris  in  these  times,  who  would  insidiously 
undermine  faith  and  morality  beneath  the  specious  mask 
of  liberality  and  superior  intelligence."  Calvin  was  not 
the  least  of  these  "  men  breathing  out  heresy." 

But  Loyola  had  done  his  work  in  securing  Xavier  as  a 
coadjutor.  A  few  months  before,  in  1534,  a  date  to  be 
remembered  in  the  history  of  Eastern  missions,  he  had, 
with  six  of  his  friends,  including  Xavier,  formed  an  asso- 
ciation for  converting  unbelievers.  This  was  the  precursor 
of  that  notorious  Company  of  Jesus  which  has  been  sup- 
pressed and  revived,  and  under  the  mask  of  religion  has 
done  untold  injury  to  the  spiritual  and  civil  liberties  of 
mankind.  The  first  project  of  a  mission  to  the  Holy 
Land  was  given  up  on  account  of  the  w^ar  there.  Xavier, 
as  a  mendicant  friar,  was  attempting  to  revive  the  tone 
of  religion  at  Bologna  and  other  universities,  when  John 
III.  of  Portugal  summoned  him,  Loyola,  and  their  friend 
Lefevre,  to  head  a  Jesuit  mission  to  the  East  Indies.  The 
scheme  did  not  commend  itself  to  Loyola,  who  proposed 
to  send  the  two  most  obscure  of  his  order.  But  at  last 
Xavier  was  permitted  to  set  out,  especially  commissioned 
by  the  King,  and  accompanying  the  new  Viceroy,  to  Goa. 
As  a  Papal  nuncio  he  also  bore  letters  to  "  David,  King 
of  Ethiopia,"  and  to  all  the  kings  of  the  East  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  the  Ganges.  He  was  accompanied 
by  another  Jesuit  Father,  Paul  Camerte,  and  by  a  lay 
assistant,  while  a  college  was  established  at  Coimbra  for 
the  support  of  two  hundred  Jesuit  associates,  who  were 
to  be  trained  for  India  missions.  The  Franciscans  had 
for  some  time  been  labouring  in  the  East,  but  John  III. 
was  not  satisfied  with  their  zeal. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-six  Xavier  landed  at  Goa,  in  May 


xavier's  attempt  55 

1542,  and  his  labours  till  his  death  on  a  barren  island  on 
the  coast  of  China  were  spread  over  ten  years  and  a  half. 
Goa  he  found  more  splendid  and  hardly  more  godless  than 
Calcutta  was  last  century.  Small  fleets  at  sea  and  small 
bodies  of  troops  on  land  were  engaged  in  incessant  attacks 
on  native  governments,  such  as  never  rose  to  the  dignity 
of  political  movements  like  those  of  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish at  a  later  period.  Hindoos  were  kept  there  by  the 
Portuguese,  as  Africans  are  now  in  Mozambique,  as  slaves. 
A  half-caste  race  sprang  into  existence  not  only  from  the 
vices  of  the  godless  settlers,  but  as  a  matter  of  policy,  for 
Albuquerque  had  seized  native  women,  and  forcibly  bap- 
tized them,  that  they  might  be  married  to  his  soldiers. 
In  this  mixed  class  the  Portuguese  sought  to  recruit  their 
army  and  navy,  seeing  not  that  it  is  only  in  proportion 
as  the  conquering  race  maintains  its  moral  and  physical 
supremacy  that  its  power  to  hold,  to  rule,  and  civilise  the 
people  will  remain  stable.  There  was  a  great  work  to  be 
done  in  Goa,  but  if  it  had  been  this  Xavier  had  wanted 
he  might  as  well  have  remained  in  Europe.  For  a  time 
he  confined  himself  to  the  hospitals  and  asylums,  but  in  a 
few  months  his  career  seems  to  have  shaped  itself. 

Like  the  greatest  of  our  Protestant  missionaries,  he 
resolved  to  establish  in  Goa  a  college  for  the  training 
of  native  preachers,  whom  he  would  leave  under  the  care 
of  others,  while  he  himself  went  forth  to  evangelise  among 
the  people.  The  Viceroy,  who  had  been  his  fellow-voyager, 
persuaded  him  to  visit  a  settlement  of  pearl-fishers  near 
the  modern  Tuticorin.  Already  some  of  this  poor  com- 
munity had  professed  to  be  Christians,  Avhile  the  Viceroy 
thought  that  by  baptizing  them  all  he  would  secure  their 
loyalty  to  Goa,  and  consequently  a  monopoly  of  the  lucra- 
tive fishery.  Xavier  had  begun  badly,  as  Commissioner  of 
John  III.,  as  Papal  Nuncio,  as  the  friend  and  agent  of  the 
Viceroy,  in  advancing  his  political  schemes.  But,  disap- 
proving of  missionaries  taking  part  in  political  movements 
or  depending  on  secular  aid,  we  would  not  judge  Xavier 
harshly.  He  lived  at  a  time  very  difi'erent  from  the  pre- 
sent, when  the  spirit  of  true  toleration  and  the  right  of 


56  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

private  judgment  were  hardly  known  even  to  the  Reformers 
who  battled  so  fiercely  for  the  principles  of  both,  Xavier, 
moreover,  did  little  more  than  Bishop  Mackenzie's  Zam- 
besi mission  in  their  attacks  on  slave-hunting  tribes  long 
after.  He  held  that  the  missionary  is  the  pioneer  of 
civilisation  as  well  as  of  that  Christianity  on  which  it  is 
based,  and  he  reproved  the  godless  among  his  countrymen 
in  the  East  as  its  greatest  obstacles.  The  fallowing  passage 
shows  with  what  a  pure  spirit  he  entered  on  his  work,  and 
the  zeal  which  burns  in  these  words  he  showed  to  the  last, 
even  when  sad  experience  taught  him  sometimes  to  doubt 
if  an  adult  Hindoo  could  possibly  be  saved : — 

* '  The  miseries  of  a  long  voyage  ;  tlie  deaUng  ^vit]l  the  sins  of  other 
people,  while  you  are  oppressed  by  your  own  ;  a  permanent  abode 
among  the  heathen,  and  this  in  a  land  which  is  scorched  by  the  rays 
of  the  sun, — all  these  things  are  indeed  trials.  But  if  they  be  endured 
for  the  cause  of  God,  they  become  great  comforts  and  the  sources  of 
many  heavenly  pleasures.  I  am  persuaded  that  those  who  truly  love 
the  cross  of  Christ  esteem  a  life  thus  passed  in  affliction  to  be  a  happy 
one,  and  regard  an  avoidance  of  the  cross,  or  an  exemption  from  it,  as 
a  kind  of  death.  For  what  death  is  more  bitter  than  to  Hve  \\ithout 
Christ,  when  once  we  have  tasted  His  preciousness  ;  or  to  desert  Him, 
that  we  may  follow  our  own  desires  ?  Believe  me,  no  cross  is  to  be 
compared  with  this  cross.  On  the  other  hand,  how  happy  it  is  to  live 
in  dying  daily,  and  in  mortifying  our  own  will,  and  in  seeking,  not 
our  own,  but  the  things  that  are  Jesus  Christ's  !  " 

"  I  trust  that,  through  the  merits  and  prayers  of  our  holy  mother 
the  Church,  in  which  is  my  chief  confidence,  and  through  the  prayers 
of  its  living  members,  to  which  you  belong,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  will 
sow  the  gospel  seed  in  this  heathen  land  by  my  instrumentality,  though 
a  worthless  servant.  Especially,  if  He  shall  be  pleased  to  use  such  a 
poor  creature  as  I  am  for  so  great  a  work,  it  may  shame  the  men  who 
were  bom  for  gi-eat  achievements  ;  and  it  may  stir  up  the  courage  of 
the  timid,  when,  forsooth,  they  see  me,  who  am  but  dust  and  ashes, 
and  the  most  abject  of  men,  a  visible  mtness  of  the  great  Avant  of 
labourers.  I  will,  indeed,  cheerfully  devote  myself  to  be  the  constant 
servant  of  any  who  will  come  over  here  and  devote  themselves  to  work 
in  the  vineyard  of  our  common  Lord." 

Xavier  learned  the  lesson  taught  by  events  since  his 
day,  that  "  colonisation  is  the  habitual,  perhaps  the  indis- 


XAVlEll'S  ATTEMPT  57 

pensable,  forerunner  of  the  gospel  among  barbarians  or 
half-civilised  tribes."  Sir  James  Stephen,  who  was  well 
able  from  his  position  and  daily  duties  to  judge,  years  ago 
declared  that  we  shall  Christianise  India  only  in  propor- 
tion as  we  Anglicise  her.  He  may  be  imaginative  in 
thinking  that  if  England  had  been,  in  Xavier's  days,  the 
sovereign  of  the  East,  that  renovating  process  would  even 
now  have  been  complete,  for  it  is  only  within  this  century 
that  England  has  become  really  equal  to  the  trust  confided 
to  her.  Moreover  the  errors  of  twice  a  millennium  .do  not 
die  so  quickly.  But  it  is  to  Xavier's  credit  that  he  at 
least  dimly  apprehended  this  truth  in  a  sense  different 
from  that  of  the  conquering  monarchs  of  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal, who  would  have  spread  the  cross  by  the  swords  of 
men  far  worse  in  their  lives  than  the  idolaters  they  wanted 
to  convert. 

For  three  years  beginning  with  May  1542,  Xavier 
toiled  as  a  missionary  in  South  India.  For  two  and  a 
half  he  was  occupied  in  a  visit  to  the  Chinese  Archipelago. 
The  subsequent  four  years  he  spent  in  superintending  the 
Jesuit  missions  in  India,  and  in  a  visit  to  Japan,  where  he 
resided  two  years,  and  then  returned  to  Goa.  The  last 
year  of  his  life  he  devoted  to  a  disastrous  attempt  to  enter 
China  as  he  had  done  Japan. 

Xavier's  whole  principles  and  modes  of  action  as  a 
missionary  were  based '  on  the  Eomish  and  idolatrous 
sacramentarian  theory.  To  put  it  theologically,  he  sought 
to  secure  in  his  so-called  converts  not  an  opus  operans, 
a  subjective  change  of  nature  working  out  into  the  life, 
but  an  opus  operafum,  an  external  work  which  required 
the  consent  of  neither  heart  nor  understanding,  but  only 
the  recitation  of  a  few  prayers  or  the  creed,  and  baptism. 
He  never  met  the  natural  difficulty  which  is  the  stum-bling- 
block  of  every  Asiatic — that  outward  ceremonies  cannot 
purge  from  sin.  So  far  as  a  vague  dread  of  Christianity 
was  a  cause  of  the  Mutiny  of  1857,  the  fear  was  based  on 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  no  loss  of  caste,  no  ceremonial 
defilement,  no  study  of  a  mere  book,  can  make  a  man  a 
Christian.     Roman  Catholicism  shares  this  error  with  all 


58  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

non-Christian  religions,  and  hence,  while  we  allow  that  its 
converts  are  better  than  they  were  as  heathens,  we  cannot 
expect  that,  in  the  future  any  more  than  in  the  past,  its 
missions  will  be  successful.  Xavier  personally  was  much 
more  free  from  this  delusion  as  to  the  value  of  ritualism 
than  many  of  his  order  and  Church.  That  order  had 
taken  its  rise  from  the  severe  spiritual  struggles  of  accom- 
plished men  of  the  world  like  Xavier  and  Loyola.  Not 
only  so,  but  Xavier  was  familiar  with  that  doctrine  of 
"  grace  "  which  the  Eef ormers  preached  in  Navarre,  in 
Paris,  in  Germany,  and  in  Geneva,  in  his  days.  But  the 
very  difficulties  presented  by  Hinduism  and  Buddhism  to 
a  change  of  .heart  in  their  votaries — obliterating  the  con- 
science as  these  systems  do — led  Xavier,  in  his  desire  for 
results,  to  be  content  with  the  outward  show  of  belief,  with 
baptism,  and  the  unintelligent  repetition  of  words  denot- 
ing spiritual  ideas  far  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the 
poor  fishermen  and  peasants  among  whom  chiefly  he 
laboured. 

Such  being  his  principles,  his  modes  of  action  corre- 
sponded. He  did  not  make  the  mistake  of  his  successors, 
in  living  as  a  Hindu  and  lowering  the  dignity  of  his  soul 
to  the  degraded  level  of  the  idolater  like  Eobert  de  Nobili- 
bus  and  Abbe  Dubois.  But  even  when  he  despairs  most 
of  success,  even  when  his  moral  sense  and  spiritual  in- 
stincts are  most  shocked  at  the  vices  of  his  converts  and 
of  the  unbaptized,  he  never  loses  his  affection  for  them. 
Like  his  Master  who  wept  over  the  city  He  had  so  often 
denounced,  Xavier  yearned  for  the  people  who  were  as 
sheep  without  a  shepherd,  and  did  not  spare  himself  for 
their  sake.  But  his  letters  clearly  show  that  he  never 
mastered  one  Oriental  language,  and  that  frequently  he  was 
without  an  interpreter.  In  some  cases  he  bought  his 
converts  with  money.  Speaking  of  the  villages  of  pearl- 
fishers  at  Tuticorin  after  he  had  been  two  years  among 
them,  he  says  he  visits  from  village  to  village : — 

"All  being  thus  surveyed,  my  labour  comes  over  again  iu  the  same 
order.  In  each  village  I  leave  one  copy  of  the  ChrisUan  Instruction. 
I  appoint  all  to  assemble  on  festival  days,  and  to  chant  the  rudiments 


XAVIERS   ATTEMPT  59 

of  the  Christian  faith  ;  aud  in  each  of  the  villages  I  appoint  a  fit 
jierson  to  preside.  For  their  wages  the  Viceroy,  at  my  request,  has 
assigned  4000  gold  fanams.  Multitudes  in  these  parts  are  only  not 
Christians  because  none  are  found  to  make  them  Christians.  Here 
I  am,  almost  alone  from  the  time  that  Anthony  remained  sick  at 
Manapar,  and  I  find  it  a  most  inconvenient  position  to  be  in  the 
midst  of  a  people  of  an  unknown  tongue,  without  the  assistance  of  an 
interpreter.  Roderick,  indeed,  who  is  now  here,  acts  as  an  interpreter 
in  the  place  of  Anthony  ;  but  you  know  well  liow  much  they  know  of 
Portuguese.  Conceive,  therefore,  what  kind  of  life  I  live  in  this  place, 
what  kind  of  sermons  I  am  able  to  address  to  the  assemblies,  when 
they  who  should  repeat  my  address  to  the  people  do  not  understand 
me,  nor  I  them,  I  ought  to  be  an  adept  in  dumb  show.  Yet  I  am  not 
without  work,  for  I  want  no  interpreter  to  baptize  infants  just  born, 
or  those  which  their  parents  bring ;  nor  to  relieve  the  famished  aud 
the  naked  who  come  in  my  way.  So  I  devote  myself  to  these  two 
kinds  of  good  works,  and  do  not  regard  my  time  as  lost." 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  people  understood  the  translations 
of  the  creed  into  their  own  language.  After  recounting  a 
large  number  of  baptisms,  Xavier,  in  one  of  his  letters,  says 
they  had  mistranslated  the  very  first  word  of  the  Creed, 
and  that,  instead  of  the  word  "  I  believe,"  (credo),  they  had 
been  using  the  expression,  "  I  will,"  {volo) !  Xavier's 
phrase  always  is  ^^  Fed  Christianos."  At  the  same  time 
he  insisted,  by  a  strict  discipline,  on  at  least  outward 
conformity  to  the  Decalogue,  and  when  the  only  Brahman 
whom  he  had  found  to  exhibit  an  intelligent  and  candid 
mind  wanted  to  be  secretly  baptized,  he  refused  to  do 
it.  Still  the  argument  Xavier  uses  most  frequently  to 
stir  up  his  brethren  in  Europe  to  send  more  mission- 
aries, and  to  quicken  the  missionaries  already  in  the  field, 
is  that  they  will  thus  be  delivered  from  the  pains  of  pur- 
gatory. To  Mansilla,  his  colleague  on  the  fishery  coast,  he 
Avrites  — "  God  give  you  patience,  which  is  the  first 
requisite  in  dealing  with  this  nation.  Imagine  to  yourself 
that  you  are  in  purgatory,  and  that  you  are  washing  away 
the  guilt  of  your  evil  deeds.  Acknowledge  the  singular 
mercy  of  God  in  granting  you  the  opportunity  for  expiat- 
ing the  sins  of  your  youth  while  you  live  and  breathe, 
which  may  now  be  accomplished  by  the  merits  of  grace, 


60  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

and  at  a  far  less  cost  of  suffering  than  in  the  world  to 
come."  Xavier's  wondrous  zeal  was  not  incompatible  with 
great  fickleness  as  to  the  object  to  which.it  was  directed, 
and  with  great  impatience  as  to  results.  Hence  his  inces- 
sant journeys  from  place  to  place  and  country  to  country. 
Two  years  were  sufficient  to  convince  him  that  to 
Christianise  the  poor  pearl-divers  was  hopeless,  even  with 
the  help  of  "  gold  fanams,"  and  he  resolved  to  direct  his 
attention  to  the  "  kings  "  of  India  and  the  East.  Hence 
his  visit  to  the  Spice  Islands,  in  which  he  seems  to  have 
secured  the  nominal  adhesion  for  a  time  of  only  two 
rajas,  who  expected  political  benefits  from  Goa.  It  is  on 
his  return  to  India  for  fifteen  months,  to  organise  all  the 
Jesuit  missions  in  the  East,  that  the  high  elements' of  his 
nature  appear.  To  this  period  of  his  life  are  due  the  rapid 
extension  of  Jesuit  missions  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
to  China  and  Japan,  and  the  proportionate  decline  of  the 
Franciscan  and  Augustinian  missions.  What  Loyola  was 
to  the  whole  Jesuit  order,  Xavier  was  to  all  the  Jesuit 
associates  in  the  East.  His  instructions  to  these  associates, 
his  personal  intercourse  with  them,  and  his  directions  as  to 
their  work,  reveal  in  him  the  intelligent  scholar,  the  zeal- 
ous missionary,  the  wise  ruler,  and  the  courteous  gentle- 
man. By  this  time,  disappointed  both  in  poor  and  rich,  he 
comes  to  the  conclusion,  which,  in  the  different  form  of  the 
suj^erior  importance  of  Bible  schools  to  spasmodic  preaching, 
Protestant  missions  are  arriving  at — "  Believe  me,  trust 
my  experience,  all  our  ministry  to  this  nation  reduces 
itself  to  two  capital  points — the  baptism  of  children,  and 
their  instruction  as  soon  as  they  are  capable  of  it."  His 
remarks  as  to  the  treatment  of  native  Christians  are 
worthy  of  study  now.     He  closes  them  by  saying — 

"In  the  presence  of  a  Portuguese,  take  good  care  not  to  reprove  or 
condemn  the  native  Christians.  On  the  contrary,  defend  them,  praise 
them,  apologise  for  them  on  every  occasion.  Point  out  to  their 
detractors  how  short  a  time  it  is  since  they  embraced  the  faith  ;  that 
they  are  still  in  infancy  ;  that  if  one  considers  how  many  helps  to  a 
Christian  life  are  wanting  to  them,  how  many  obstacles  are  opposed  to 
their  Christian  advancement,  by  the  penury  of  the  priests,  by  the 


xavier's  attempt  61. 

incursions  of  the  barbarians,  by  their  terror  of  the  Badages — far  from 
being  surprised  at  the  defects  of  so  rude  a  nation,  one  can  only  wonder 
that  tliey  are  not  worse. " 

How  well  it  would  be  if  all  modern  preachers  kept  the 
following  in  mind  : — 

"Men  will  only  listen  attentively  to  that  which  responds  to  their 
internal  consciousness.  Sublime  speculations,  perplexed  questions, 
and  scholastic  controversies,  overshoot  the  capacity  and  the  interest  of 
men  who  grovel  upon  the  earth  :  they  make  a  vain  sound,  and  pass 
away  without  effect.  You  must  sliow  men  to  themselves,  if  you  wish 
to  hold  them  enchained  by  your  words.  But  before  you  can  express 
what  they  feel  in  the  depths  of  their  heart,  you  must  know  it ;  and 
there  is  only  one  way  of  knowing  it — to  be  much  among  them,  to 
test  them,  to  observe  them.  Take  in  hand  these  living  books  ;  hence 
derive  your  rules  for  teaching  with  effect ;  hence  obtain  your  ability 
of  dealing  with  sinners,  of  bearing  with  them,  and,  for  the  sake  of 
saving  their  souls,  of  moving  and  bending  their  wills  in  the  right 
direction."  "  There  is  but  one  key  which  will  unlock  those  hearts, 
namely,  the  presentation  to  them,  as  I 'have  said,  of  their  interior  con- 
victions skilfully  portrayed  by  a  preacher  well  versed  in  human 
affairs,  and  brought  home  clearly  to  the  apprehension  of  each  in- 
dividual." 

Xavier  throughout  shows  himself  to  be  a  man  whom 
Protestantism  would  have  made  a  Luther,  or  a  later  age  a 
Cromwell.  As  time  passed  on  and  his  work  became  less 
and  less  hopeful,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  spirit  he  proposes 
that  India  should  be  converted  by  the  power  of  the  secular 
arm.  In  Japan,  where  he  was  most  successful,  we  find  him 
writing  to  Ignatius  Loyola,  in  words  which  show  how  little 
ritualism  sup^^orted  himself  personally  :— 

"  I  can  never  describe  in  writing  how  much  I  owe  to  the  Japanese, 
since  God  through  their  means  penetrated  my  mind  with  a  clear  and 
intimate  conviction  of  my  innumerable  sins.  Hitherto  my  thoughts 
ever  wandered  beyond  myself :  I  had  not  searched  into  that  abyss  of 
evil  lying  deep  in  my  conscience,  until,  as  midst  the  troubles  and 
anguish  of  Japan,  my  eyes  were  a  little  opened,  and  the  good  Lord 
granted  me  to  see  clearly,  and  to  have,  as  it  were,  a  present  and  tangible 
experience  of  the  necessity  of  having  a  friend  to  keep  up  an  ever- 
attentive  and  sedulous  care  over  me.     Let  your  holy  charity,  therefore, 


62  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

suggest  to  you  what  you  may  do  for  me  whilst  subjecting  to  my 
government  the  souls  of  fathers  and  brethren  of  our  Society.  For, 
through  the  infinite  mercy  of  God,  I  have  lately  discovered  that  I  am 
so  ill  furnished  with  the  necessary  qualities  for  discharging  this 
government,  that  I  ought  rather  to  hope  to  be  myself  commended  by 
you  to  the  care  and  supervision  of  my  brethren,  than  that  they  should 
be  committed  to  my  guidance." 

Xavier's  end  was  like  his  life.  Eager  to  introduce 
Christianity  into  China,  and  knowing  that  as  a  missionary- 
he  could  not  enter  it,  he  planned  an  embassy  from  Goa  to 
Peking,  of  which  he  was  to  be  the  head,  but  the  Governor 
of  Malacca  arrested  it  on  the  way.  Still,  in  a  trader 
belonging  to' his  friend,  James  Pereira,  he  left  the  Bay  of 
Singapore  and  reached  the  island  of  Sancian,  a  low  sandy 
spot  off  the  coast,  near  Canton,  where  the  Portuguese  ships 
were  accustomed  to  lie  at  anchor.  Here  he  was  stricken 
with  fever,  but  his  active  spirit  never  ceased  to  be  busy. 
Eecovering  after  fifteen  days,  he  wrote  nine  long  letters 
regarding  his  missions,  but  still  could  not  enter  China. 
He  succeeded  in  bribing  a  Chinese  merchant  for  .£300  to 
smuggle  him  in  his  junk,  but  his  own  interpreter  refused 
to  run  the  risk.  In  his  last  letter  the  words  occur — "  I 
shall  not  die  before  God  wills  my  death.  Long  since, 
indeed,  I  have  desired  death,  and  life  has  been  a  weari- 
ness. But  let  not  human  curiosity  indulge  in  useless 
disputes  about  the  hour  of  my  decease.  It  is  fixed  in  the 
eternal  decree,  and  vain  thoughts  can  neither  hasten  nor 
delay  it."  In  three  weeks,  on  2nd  December  1552,  Xavier 
died  without  friend  or  helper.  In  a  mere  shed  on  a  barren 
island  he  drew  his  last  breath,  and  there  Portuguese 
merchants  found  him  as  he  died.  The  first  account  we 
have  as  to  the  body  is  in  a  letter  from  a  Jesuit  in  Goa, 
written  to  the  Society  in  Europe  just  two  years  after  the 
event.  The  writer's  authority  is  a  friend  who  heard  the 
story  from  sailors.  The  merchants  who  were  with  him 
when  he  died  buried  his  body  in  quicklime  the  sooner  to 
consume  it,  that  they  might  take  his  bones  to  India. 
After  waiting  long  enough  they  found  the  corpse  still 
perfect  and  were  astonished  at  the  miracle.     It  was  taken 


xavier's  attempt  63 

in  a  coffin  filled  with  quicklime  to  Malacca,  and  there 
buried  with  great  pomp.  A  Jesuit  brother,  sent  to 
investigate  the  circumstances  of  Xavier's  death,  found  it 
there  still  perfect,  placed  it  in  a  new  coffin,  and  kept  it  in 
his  own  hermitage,  till,  about  a  year  after  Xavier's  death, 
he  and  another  took  it  to  Goa.  Dressed  in  splendid  vest- 
ments, with  hands  crossed  and  sandals  on  the  feet,  it  was 
deposited  in  the  Jesuit  chapel  by  a  great  procession  headed 
by  the  Viceroy.  Whether  the  body  now  periodically  ex- 
hibited as  a  holy  relic  at  Goa  is  indeed  that  of  Francis 
Xavier,  inquirers  will  decide  according  to  the  greater  or 
less  amount  of  their  credulity. 

Xavier  certainly  never  underwent  such  actual  dangers 
and  hardships  as  modern  missionaries  of  his  own  Church 
in  China,  or  men  like  Henry  Marty n,  Williams,  and 
Livingstone ;  but  his  visit  to  China  shows  that  his  spirit 
and  energy  were  like  those  of  Paul.  In  zeal  approach- 
ing to  fanaticism  which  would  have  used  the  sword ;  in 
self-denial  not  far  removed  from  a  sublime  asceticism; 
in  courage  which  reproved  viceroys,  advised  kings,  and 
faced  all  obstacles;  in  humility,  sympathy  with  his 
brethren,  and  love  for  the  erring  convert  like  his  Master's ; 
in  all  that  wins  personal  affection  and  devoted  admira- 
tion, Francis  Xavier  is  without  a  superior  in  the  history 
of  missions.  If  he  left  no  abiding  work  behind  him, 
let  us  at  least  be  grateful  that  we  have  in  his  letters 
at  once  beacons  to  warn  us  from  his  mistakes,  and  the 
picture  of  a  character  which  has  such  parallels  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  as  the  other  Francis,  of  Assisi,  and 
Eaymund  Lull. 

Bishop  Cotton,  the  most  tolerant  and  impartial  of  all 
the  Anglican  metropolitans,  next  to  Heber,  wrote  a 
remarkable  letter  to  Dean  Stanley,  dated  4th  January  1864, 
after  a  visit  to  Goa,  in  which  this  passage  occurs — "  The 
third  church  contains  Xavier's  tomb,  and,  therefore,  all  the 
remaining  interest  of  Goa.  The  shrine  is  adorned  by 
four  fine  bas-reliefs  in  bronze,  representing  Xavier  preach- 
ing, baptizing,  persecuted,  and  dying ;  and  on  the  top  of 
the  shrine,  which  is  very  lofty,  rests  the  coffin  of  solid  silver 


64  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

containing  his  body.  Just  outside  the  chapel  is  a  portrait 
of  him,  said  to  be  perfectly  authentic,  and  representing 
a  face  of  marvellous  pathos  and  devotion.  I  confess, 
however,  that  while  he  deserves  the  title  of  Apostle  of 
India  for  his  energy,  self-sacrifice,  and  piety,  I  consider  his 
whole  method  thoroughly  wrong,  its  results  in  India  and 
Ceylon  most  deplorable,  and  that  the  aspect  of  the  native 
Christians  at  Coa  and  elsewhere  shows  that  Eomanism  has 
had  a  fair  trial  at  the  conversion  of  India,  and  has  entirely 
failed." 

This  is  the  criticism  of  his  missionary  work  by  the 
Abb6  Dubois,  writing  after  much  experience  of  the  de- 
scendants of  his  nominal  converts  a  century  ago — "At 
last  Francis  Xavier,  entirely  disheartened  by  the  innumer- 
able obstacles  he  everywhere  met  in  his  apostolic  career, 
and  by  the  apparent  impossibility  of  making  real  converts, 
left  the  country  in  disgust." 

Xavier's  despair  of  converting  adult  Asiatics  by  sub- 
stituting one  ritualistic  system  for  another,  drove  him,  on 
his  first  departure  from  India,  to  ask  John  III.  of  Portugal, 
on  10th  November  1545,  the  favour  of  introducing  into 
Goa  and  his  Indian  dominions  the  Holy  Office  of  the 
Inquisition.  That  accursed  institution,  which  was  devised 
at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  extirpate  the 
Albigenses,  and  had  been  for  nearly  a  century  used  in 
Spain  to  burn  recusant  Jews  and  Mohammedans  by  the 
infamous  Torquemada  and  like-minded  priests,  was  thought 
of  by  Xavier  as  the  only  means  of  exterminating  "the 
Jewish  wickedness  "  which  he  asserted  was  daily  spreading 
in  Portuguese  India. 

In  1560  the  Inquisition  was  established  at  Goa,  and  it 
continued  its  deeds  of  darkness  down  to  the  visit  to  Goa 
of  Henry  Martyn  in  1811,  when,  he  tells  ^  Lydia  Grenfell, 
"  the  priest  in  waiting  acknowledged  that  they  had  some 
prisoners  within  the  walls,  and  defended  the  practice  of 
imprisoning  and  chastising  offenders  on  the  ground  of  its 

1  Henry  Martyn,  Saint  and  Scholar.  London,  New  York,  and 
Chicago,  1892,  p.  323, 


xavier's  attempt  65 

being  conformed  to  the  custom  of  the  Primitive  Church." 
Yes  !  the  history  of  Christian  missions,  even  of  the  Church 
in  India,  is  stained  by  the  use  of  the  tortures  of  the  In- 
quisition as  a  Aveapon.  Under  British  influence  it  was 
abolished  by  the  prince  Regent  of  Portugal  in  1816. 

Though  thus  intolerant  to  the  venerable  Jewish  com- 
munities of  Western  and  Southern  India,  Xavier  refers  to 
the  Nestorian  churches  which  he  visited  only  in  indifferent 
terms.  His  call  was  not  to  them,  but  to  the  non-Christians. 
Not  so  the  Franciscans,  to  which  order  belonged  the  first 
Bishop  of  Goa,  Don  Juan  d' Albuquerque,  who  in  1545 
began  those  intrigues  and  persecutions  which,  followed  up 
by  the  Jesuits,  resulted  in  the  despatch,  by  Philip  II.  of 
Spain,  when  he  had  seized  the  kingdom  of  Portugal,  of 
Don  Aleixo  de  Menezes  as  Archbishop  of  Goa.  Twice 
had  the  Syrian  bishop  been  shipped  to  Lisbon,  and  Mar 
Simeon,  convicted  by  the  Inquisition  of  the  Nestorian 
heresy,  had  been  declared  no  bishop  and  imprisoned.  In 
1595  Menezes  sailed  with  full  powers  from  Pope  Clement 
VIII.  to  destroy  the  independence  of  the  old  and  com- 
paratively pure  Nestorian  Church  of  India.  This  Christian 
archbishop's  mission  was  the  destruction  of  Christianity. 
This  much  may  be  said  for  Portugal,  that  the  time  when 
alike  its  Church  became  accursed  and  its  commerce  ruined 
was  during  "the  sixty  years'  captivity,"  when  from  1580 
to  1640  Spain  was  its  master. 

Antonio  de  Gouvea's  Portuguese  history  of  the  Missum 
of  Aleixo  de  Menezes  to  the  Christians  of  S.  Thomas  and  the 
abridgment  of  the  narrative  by  our  own  Geddes  and 
Hough,  as  well  as  by  La  Croze  ^  in  his  Histoire  du  Chris- 
tianisme  des  Indes,  tell  a  tale  of  iniquity  which  we  may 
most  fairly  characterise  in  the  language  of  the  national 
historian,  the  learned  and  literary  Manuel  de  Faria  e  Sousa, 
who,  in  his  Asia  Foiiuguesa,  ascribes  the  ruin  of  all  the 

^  La  Ci'oze,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  Royal  Library  at  Berlin  in 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
to  hazard  the  guess  that  the  various  alphabets  of  India  arose  from 
the  "Hanscrit"  or  Sanskrit.  The  Danish-Halle  missionary,  Schultze 
was  one  of  his  correspondents. 

F 


66  THE  CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

persons  who  went  to  the  Indies  to  their  rapacity  and 
wrong-doing :  "  Whereas  God  permitted  the  discovery  of 
this  country  only  for  the  propagation  of  His  name  and 
the  true  Avorship  (but  not  by  such  barbarous  methods  as 
the  fore-mentioned,  I  venture  to  say),  these  travellers  have 
for  the  most  part  pursued  the  ends  of  a  sacrilegious 
covetousness,  committing  many  acts  of  injustice  to  fill 
their  coffers,  instead  of  having  any  regard  to  religion." 

The  parallel  narrative  to  this  we  find  in  a  Mohammedan 
description  of  the  coast  of  Malabar  by  Zeir-ed-deen 
Mukhdom,^  translated  from  the  Arabic  by  Jonathan 
Duncan,  who  afterwards  died  Governor  of  Bombay.  The 
work  brings  down  the  Portuguese  history  in  Malabar  to 
1579-80,     Literally  translated,  the  writer  says — 

"The  Mussulmans  sinned  so  that  God  turned  from  them,  and  did 
therefore  command  the  Europeans  of  Portugal,  who  oppressed  and 
distressed  the  Mohammedan  community  by  the  commission  of  un- 
limited enormities.  .  .  .  They  also  endeavoured  to  make  converts  to 
their  own  religion,  and  enjoined  churches  of  their  own  faith  to  be 
consecrated,  tempting  people  for  these  objects  with  offers  of  money  ; 
and  they  dressed  out  their  own  women  in  the  finest  ornaments  and 
apparel  in  order  thereby  to  deceive  and  allure  the  women  of  the 
believers.  They  did  also  put  Hajjis  and  other  Mussulmans  to  a 
variety  of  cruel  deaths  .  .  .  and  confined  the  Mohammedans,  and 
loaded  them  with  heavy  irons,  carrying  them  about  for  sale,  from 
shop  to  shop,  as  slaves.  .  .  .  They  confined  them  also  in  dark, 
noisome,  and  hideous  dungeons." 

Such  were  the  impressions  produced  by  the  missionary 
work  of  the  Archbishop  Menezes,  backed  by  the  In- 
quisition, which  ended  in  the  private  subscription  by  the 
archdeacon  who  represented  the  Syrian  Church,  of  ten 
articles,  the  meeting  of  the  Synod  of  Diamper  in  1599, 
and  the  decadence  of  Portugal  for  ever  in  the  East  on  the 
capture  of  Cochin  by  the  Dutch  in  1663.  Then  the  old 
Malabar  Christian  Church,  which  had  not  faith  enough  to 
produce  martyrs,  but  had  bent  for  the  hour  to  the  Hispano- 
Papal  storm,  rose  again  from  the  persecution,  weakened 
in  spirituality,  in  numbers,  and  in  prestige,  and  without 

^  Asiatic  Hesearches,  yoL  v.     London  Reprint,  1807. 


THE   JESUIT  ATTEMPT  67 

their  own  prelates  from  Mosul.  Indeed,  the  Nestorian 
Church  in  India  ceased  in  1599,  and  when  it  recovered 
liberty  in  1665  it  became,  what  it  has  ever  since  been, 
Jacobite  in  creed,  under  Mar  Gregory  consecrated  and  sent 
by  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch.  But,  by  a  historical  irony, 
those  of  the  original  Church  who  adhered  to  the  Latin 
rite,  have  ever  since  been  known  as  the  Old  Church  or 
Catholics  of  the  Syrian  rite,  while  the  really  independent 
majority  who  accepted  Mar  Gregory  and  his  Jacobite 
creed  are  the  New  Church. 

All  Francis  Xavier's  zeal  and  self-sacrifice,  followed  up 
by  the  intolerance  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  secular  power 
of  Portugal,  failed,  by  his  own  confession,  to  found  a  self- 
propagating  Christian  Church  in  India.  Condemning  his 
at  least  honest  attempts,  his  successors  devised  the  policy 
which  resulted  in  the  greatest  scandal  of  all  Romanist 
missions,  greater  even  than  the  curse  of  the  Inquisition — 
what  was  known  as  the  Malabar  Rites  in  South  India  and 
the  Chinese  Rites  in  North  China.  If  the  corrupt  Christian 
system  of  the  Council  of  Trent  had  proved  too  pure,  on  even 
Xavier's  methods,  to  win  over  the  people  of  Portuguese 
India  and  make  them  better,  then  perhaps  an  altogether 
paganised  teaching,  in  which  Christianity  was  disguised  as 
a  form  of  Brahmanism  in  India  and  of  Buddhism  in  China, 
might  delude  the  natives  into  accepting  the  faith.  By 
the  unconscious  or  magical  sacramentarian  influence  of 
the  Jesuit  Brahmans  and  Bonzes,  the  natives  might  become 
Christians  in  spite  of  themselves.  The  policy  was  one 
of  devilish  despair,  and  it  ended  in  rapid  defeat.  There 
is,  unhappily,  no  doubt  as  to  the  facts.  They  are  to  be 
found,  not  in  the  attacks  of  Protestant  controversialists  or 
historians,  but  in  the  confessions  of  the  Jesuits  themselves, 
in  the  careful  reports  of  cardinals,  and  in  the  judicial 
Bulls  of  Popes.  The  three  Jesuit  Fathers,  one  of  whom 
devised,  the  second  died  for,  and  the  third  executed  the 
scheme,  were  by  birth  and  culture  the  noblest  of  them 
all.  These  were  Robert  de  Nobilibus,  John  de  Britto,  and 
Father  Beschi. 

When    Madura    was    still    the    splendid    capital    of 


68  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

Tirumala  and  the  Nayak  kings  of  South  India,  Robert 
de  Nobilibus,  grandnephew  of  a  pope  and  nephew  of 
Cardinal  Bellarmine,  resolved  to  win  it  over  to  Rome. 
Fifty  years  after  Xavier's  death  the  profession  of 
Christianity  had  not  spread  beyond  the  poor  fishermen 
(Paravas)  around  Cape  Comorin.  The  Hindus  proper 
hated  the  Portuguese,  or  Parangis,  because  they  lived  with 
such  pariah  outcasts,  because  they  ate  the  flesh  of  the 
cow,  and  used  intoxicating  drinks.  But  Robert,  trans- 
muting the  saying  of  the  Apostle  who  became  all  things 
to  all  men  that  he  might  win  them  to  Christ,  into  the 
Jesuit  doctrine  that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means,  determined 
to  appear  literally  a  Hindu  that  he  might  save  Hindus.^ 
Having  obtained  the  sanction  of  his  own  Archbishop 
of  Cranganor  to  the  propagation  of  the  living  lie  that  he 
was  a  Brahman-prince  from  Rome  and  a  Saniyasi  or  Hindu 
devotee  of  the  strictest  profession,  he  disappeared  one  day 
in  the  Brahman  quarter  of  Madura,  where  he  was  waited 
on  by  Brahman  servants  alone.  In  due  time  the  rumour 
spread  that  a  holy  ascetic  from  a  distant  region  was 
hidden  in  the  city,  invisible  to  all  because  rapt  in 
meditation  on  God.  He  had  mastered  the  Hindu  ritual 
and  the  Tamil  language.  Gradually  the  few  who  were 
seekers  after  some  new  theory,  and  then  the  many  impelled 
by  curiosity,  were  admitted  to  his  presence,.when  they  beheld 
the  new  Brahman  clad  and  surrounded  like  the  idol  Shiva. 
The  imposture  was  successful  for  a  time.  Converts  to 
the  new  order  were  made  with  a  facility  common  enough 
in  every  century  under  the  elastic  eclecticism  of  Brahmanism. 
The  great  king  Tirumala  himself  favoured  the  sage  so 
much  as  to  cease  building  temples,  with  the  result  that 
the  Brahmans  awoke  to  the  danger,  got  rid  of  their  king, 
and  began  the  persecution  of  1693.  The  most  famous 
victim  of  this  national  reaction  was  John  Hector  de  Britto, 
a  noble  of  Lisbon,  drawn  to  the  missionary's  career  by  the 

1  See  the  sympathetic  and  most  valuable  District  Manual,  The 
Madura  Country,  compiled  by  J.  H.  Nelson,  M.  A.,  of  the  Madras  Civil 
Service,  and  late  Fellow  of  King's  College,  Cambridge,  and  published 
by  Government,  1868. 


THE  JESUIT  ATTEMPT  69 

example  of  Francis  Xavier.  His  letters  are  left  to  tell  us 
at  once  of  his  evil  methods  and  his  gentleness  under 
suffering.  Eetiring  to  Ceylon  from  the  storm  after  forty- 
two  years  spent  in  deception  so  gross,  that  he  made  oath 
upon  a  forged  scroll  ^  before  the  suspicious  Brahmans  that 
he  had  in  very  truth  sprung  from  the  god  Brahma,  he 
died  finally  in  a  mud  hut  near  the  church  of  St.  Thomas, 
not  far  from  Madras,  attended  by  four  Brahmans.  He 
has  left  several  works  in  the  Tamil  language,  which  are 
praised  by  experts  for  the  purity  of  their  style  and  idiom, 
especially  The  Kandam,  a  diffuse  manual  of  Jesuit  theology, 
adapted  to  the  taste  of  the  Hindus. 

After  renewed  persecution  in  1714,  the  Madura  mission 
revived  under  the  last  and  most  scholarly  of  its  Jesuit 
superiors,  R.  C.  J.  Beschi,  whose  Tamil  works,  and  especially 
his  Temhavani  poem  or  the  Gospel  Mysteries  (1726),  is  con- 
sidered a  masterpiece  of  pure  style.  After  him  the  Society 
of  Jesus  was  suppressed.  The  discovery  of  the  lie  on  which 
the  Madura  mission  rested  resulted  in  the  apostasy  of 
thousands.  Christianity  became  more  than  ever  discredited 
because  its  only  representatives  were  the  Jesuits  of 
Portugal.  The  pure  Churches  of  the  Reformation  were 
still  asleep,  or  represented  abroad  only  by  the  early  traders 
of  the  Dutch  and  English  East  India  Companies. 

The  scandals  ^  of  the  Jesuit  rites  in  India,  first  practised 
in  China  by  Matteo  Ricci,  were  eagerly  reported  at  Goa 
and  then  to  Rome  by  the  rival  Franciscan  and  Dominican 
missionaries.  Even  Menezes  condemned  them.  Put 
upon  their  defence,  the  Jesuits  protested  that  the  rites 

*  The  most  audacious  and  skilful  of  his  literary  forgeries  was  the 
Fifth  Yeda,  best  known  by  its  French  title  L'Ezour  V6dam.  Sent 
from  Pondicherry  in  1761.  it  was  published  in  1778,  and  so  far 
deceived  the  learned  of  Europe,  that  Voltaire  cited  its  mixture  of 
theistic  Brahmanism  and  Biblical  truth  as  a  proof  of  the  superiority  of 
Hinduism  to  Christianity. 

2  See  for  the  most  restrained  and  judicial  account  of  the  Malabar 
and  Chinese  Jesuit  scandals,  the  elaborate  article  in  the  Calcutta 
Review,  vol.  ii.  (1846)  by  Dr.  Duff's  colleague,  Dr.  W.  S.  Mackay,  a 
most  accomplished  scholar  and  saintly  Scottish  gentleman. 


70  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

were  only  civil  observances,  contrary  neither  to  faith  nor 
morals,  and  required  for  the  successful  propagation  of  the 
Church  in  India.  In  1623  Gregory  XV.  issued,  but  only 
to  the  accused  privately,  a  "  constitution,"  allowing  certain 
of  the  objectionable  customs  on  this  civil  plea,  but 
beseeching  them  to  give  up  every  practice  that  savoured 
of  heathenism,  and  to  allow  of  no  caste  distinction  in 
worship.  Till  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Jesuits  concealed  the  document  and  went  on  as  before. 
By  1782  the  evil  had  become  again  so  notorious,  that 
Clement  XI.  sent  out  the  ablest  and  most  honest  Italian 
ecclesiastic  of  his  day.  Cardinal  de  Tournon  of  Savoy,  as 
legate  a  latere  to  report,  and  meanwhile  to  enforce 
obedience.  He  did  his  work  so  thoroughly  that  the 
Jesuits  caused  him  to  perish  in  a  Macao  dungeon.  This 
decree  of  8th  July  1704  exposed  and  rebuked  the  semi- 
paganism  of  the  Madura  and  afterwards  of  the  Peking 
missions,  but  confessed  that  much  had  been  left  still  un- 
reformed.  It  was  confirmed  in  1706  by  the  Pope,  but 
Brief  after  Brief  was  necessary  up  to  1745,  when  the  Bull 
Omnium  Sollicitudinum  of  Benedict  XIV.,  following  one  on 
the  Chinese  rites,  ended  the  iniquity,  and  the  Society  of 
Jesus  was  soon  after  put  down  for  a  time. 

Under  Portuguese  influence  chiefly,  travellers  like 
Mandelslo  and  Pietro  della  Valle,  and  Komish  missionaries 
of  the  three  chief  orders,  found  their  way  north  and  east 
to  Mysore  and  Agra,  conciliating  the  native  rulers.  The 
great  Emperor  Akbar  turned  to  such  for  information 
regarding  Christianity,  partly  to  please  his  Christian  wife, 
and  partly  to  help  him  in  the  elaboration  of  his  new 
religion.  Francis  Xavier's  nephew,  Jerome,  wrote  for 
him  the  Persian  Histories  of  Christ  and  of  the  Apostle 
Peter,  which  appeared  at  Leyden,  from  the  Elzevir  press, 
with  a  Latin  translation  and  many  warning  notes  by 
Ludovicus  de  Dieu.  There  is  a  striking  passage  in  the 
Ain  i  Akhari,  the  greatest  of  the  Mohammedan  histories 
of  India,  which  Akbar's  minister  Abulfazl  compiled  to 
record  the  Ain  or  "mode  of  governing"  followed  by  the 
mighty  Emperor : — 


THE   JESUIT  ATTEMPT  71 

"Learned  monks  also  came  from  Europe,  who  go  by 
the  name  of  Padre}  They  have  an  infallible  head  called 
Pdpd.  He  can  change  any  religious  ordinances  as  he 
may  think  advisable,  and  kings  have  to  submit  to  his 
authority.  These  monks  brought  the  gospel  and 
mentioned  to  the  Emperor  their  proofs  for  the  Trinity. 
His  Majesty  firmly  believed  in  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  wishing  to  spread  the  doctrines  of  Jesus, 
ordered  Prince  Murad  ^  to  take  a  few  lessons  in  Christianity 
by  way  of  auspiciousness,  and  charged  Abulfazl  to  translate 
the  Gospel.  Instead  of  the  usuBlBismiUaJir-irrahmdn-irrahim,^ 
the  following  lines  were  used — 

Ai  ndm  i  tu  Jesus  o  Kiristo 
(0  Thou  whose  names  are  Jesus  and  Christ), 

which  means,  '  0  thou  whose  name  is  gracious  and 
blessed ' ;  and  Shaikh  Faizi  added  another  half  in  order  to 
complete  the  verse — 

SuhhdnaJca  Id  siwdka  Yd  M 
(We  praise  Thee,  there  is  no  one  besides  Thee,  0  God  !) 

"These  accursed  monks  applied  the  description  of  cursed 
Satan  and  of  his  qualities  to  Mohammed,  the  best  of  all 
prophets  —  God's  blessings  rest  on  him  and  his  whole 
house  ! — a  thing  which  even  devils  would  not  do."  Again 
Akbar,  we  are  told,  in  his  eclectic  worship,  while  follow- 
ing some  Hindu  customs  to  please  "the  numerous  Hindu 
princesses  of  the  hareem,"  ordered  the  ringing  of  bells  as 
in  use  with  Christians,  and  the  showing  of  the  figure  of 
the  cross  "  and  other  childish  playthings  of  theirs  "  daily. 

The  Jesuit  Fathers  went  as  far  as  Nepal,  which  they 
first  entered  in  1661.  The  fine  library  of  the  Propaganda 
College  at  Eome  contains  several  translations  into  Nepali. 

^  Page  182  of  the  lamented  Professor  Bloelimann's  Translation,  vol. 
i,  which  he  did  not  live  to  complete  (Calcutta,  1873). 

2  Then  about  eight  years  of  age. 

^  Formula  used  by  every  schoolboy  before  he  begins  to  read  from 
his  text-book. 


72  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

Southern  Asia  might  have  received  Christianity  under 
Akbar,  as  in  the  tolerant  and  inquiring  days  of  Chinghiz 
Khan  and  his  successors  Central  Asia  was  open  to  it,  had 
the  Christian  Church  been  alive  to  the  duty  and  privilege. 
But  its  Romanist  like  its  Nestorian  representatives  again 
failed.  The  former  did  not  give  the  people  the  Word  of 
God  in  their  own  language;  they  rather  travestied  its 
doctrines,  obscured  its  teaching,  withheld  its  self-evidencing 
revelation. 

We  need  not  trace  the  progress  of  Papal  missions  in 
India,  in  detail,  to  the  present  time.  When  at  Viza- 
gapatam,  in  North  Madras,  in  1869,  the  writer  personally 
studied  the  working  of  the  Roman  Catholic  mission  there 
with  the  aid  of  the  courteous  Belgian  bishop.  He 
did  not  guarantee  the  statistics  published  in  the  Madras 
Catholic  Directory  annually,  nor  did  he  say  that  there  was 
any  earnest  proselytism  or  pastoral  and  educational  work 
among  the  natives.  The  truth  is,  that  the  Roman  Catholic 
authorities  do  not  collect  statistics  of  the  native  peoples 
of  India  professing  the  Latin  rite  with  the  same  accuracy 
or  in  the  same  detail  as  we  find  in  the  decennial  returns 
of  the  Reformed  missionary  organisations.  But  their 
figures  in  the  gross  approach  so  closely  to  the  results  of 
the  Government  census  that  they  may  be  accepted.  In 
British  India  and  its  native  States  in  1891  there  were 
1,277,926  of  a  Roman  Catholic  population.  In  Portu- 
guese India  the  number  was  281,248,  chiefly  in  Goa. 
In  the  little  French  settlements,  principally  Pondicheri 
and  Karikal,  there  were  35,727.  The  total  was  thus 
1,594,901.  Deducting  the  British  soldiers  and  Eurasians, 
we  may  say  that  there  are  in  India  one  and  a  quarter 
million  of  Roman  Catholic  native  Christians,  dating 
chiefly  from  the  time  of  Xavier — though  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  these  are  descendants  of  the  forcibly  converted 
Nestorians — against  three  quarters  of  a  million  of  natives 
belonging  to  the  Reformed  Churches.  The  former  do  not 
increase,  as  the  latter  do,  by  active  proselytism. 

The  Papal  Church  in  India  is  now  rent  into  two  divi- 
sions— one  administered  under  the  old  Portuguese  right  of 


THE  JESUIT  ATTEMPT  73 

"padroado,"  or  patronage  of  all  benefices  granted  by  the 
Popes  from  1534  to  1606,  and  the  other  under  the  Propa- 
ganda at  Eome  since  1838,  when  Gregory  XVI.  confined  the 
Portuguese  jurisdiction  to  Goa  and  Daman.  His  successors 
vacillated  between  the  conflicting  claims,  intensifying 
the  schism,  till  1886,  when  the  King  of  Portugal  sur- 
rendered his  undoubted  right  over  the  whole  of  India  for 
a  compromise.  The  matter  was  the  more  urgent  that 
the  Romanist  military  chaplains  whom  we  pay  were 
frequently  unable  to  speak  a  word  of  English,  and  even 
yet,  though  no  longer  Portuguese,  they  are  too  often 
Belgians  or  French-speaking.  Still,  the  relics  of  power 
and  interference  left  to  the  Archbishop  of  Goa  in  British 
territorj'  are  so  annoying  to  the  British  Roman  Catholics 
there  that  they  are  perpetually  complaining.  The 
Jesuits,  once  expelled  from  India,  have  now  large  colleges 
in  Bombay  and  Calcutta  and  elsewhere  affiliated  to  the 
Universities.  The  most  interesting  communities  are 
those  of  Agra,  Bettia,  Gwalior  and  Sirdhana,  which,  in 
origin,  go  back  to  the  tolerant  days  of  Akbar  and  his 
Christian  wife.^ 

^  The  latest  authoritative  figures  showing  the  contributions  of  the 
whole  Church  of  Rome  for  missions  to  non-Christians  are  those  for 
1891,  when  6,694,458  francs,  or  £267,778,  was  acknowledged,  being 
378,354  less  than  in  1890.  The  official  Illustrated  Catholic  Missions 
Magazine  remarks  it  as  noteworthy  that  more  than  four  millions  of  the 
above  sum  came  from  France.  "Alsace-Lorraine  sent  315,000  francs, 
while  all  united  Germany  contributed  but  6000  more.  Algiers  and 
Tunis  and  the  French  population  of  Mauritius  bring  the  contributions 
of  the  Dark  Continent  to  almost  five  times  the  amount  sent  from 
Asia.  In  other  countries  there  are  found  surprising  variations. 
Thus,  while  Austro-Hungary  gives  only  80,000  francs,  Holland  gives 
nearly  100,000  ;  and  while  Belgium  gives  379,000  francs,  Spain  con- 
tributes less  than  half  that  amount.  Of  the  total  of  155,380  con- 
tributed by  the  United  Kingdom,  the  largest  sum  sent  by  any  diocese 
is  that  of  24,900  sent  by  Dublin,  the  second  and  tbird  places  being 
taken  by  Westminster  with  17,000  and  Cashel  with  12,000.  But  far 
the  largest  diocesan  subscription  is  that  of  Lyons,  which  amounts  to 
480,000  francs.  Italy  subscribed  330,000  francs,  and  North  America 
580,000,  the  larger  proportion  of  which  came  from  Mexico. "    Although 


74  THE  CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

The  whole  subject  of  Eomanist  missions  in  India,  their 
principles,  methods,  and  results,  was  pretty  well  exhausted 
in  two  works,  by  Abb6  Dubois  and  Cardinal  Wiseman,  which 
appeared  in  1823  and  1836,  and  in  the  answers  to  these 
by  the  Rev.  James  Hough,  whose  evidence,  also,  as  given 
before  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
19th  July  1832,  deserves  study.  The  Abb6  Dubois,  after 
thirty  years'  experience  in  Mysore  as  a  missionary,  pub- 
lished his  Letters  on  the  State  of  Christianity  in  India,  in  which 
the  Conversion  of  the  Hindoos  is  considered  impracticaUe.  He 
declares  that  "  the  disappointment  and  want  of  success 
of  Xavier  ought  to  have  been  sufficient  to  damp  the  most 
fervent  zeal  of  the  persons  disposed  to  enter  the  same 
career";  that  he  himself  had  toiled  in  vain;  that  his 
brethren  had  met  with  no  better  success  than  himself,  and 
that  the  few  Protestant  missionaries  in  India  up  to  that 
time  (including  Schwartz  and  Carey,  be  it  remembered,) 
had  altogether  failed.  He  accordingl)^  came  to  what  has 
been  well  called  the  astounding  conclusion,  that  the  time 
of  the  conversion  of  India  had  passed  away ;  that  Chris- 
tianity had  done  its  work  in  the  world;  that  the  six 
hundred  millions  of  souls,  as  then  estimated,  in  India  and 
China,  Africa  and  Oceania,  in  pagan  darkness,  were  to  be 
abandoned  to  the  Almighty's  irrevocable  decree,  which 
doomed  them  to  perdition.  Writing  of  his  own  experience, 
he  admitted,  "I  have  made  in  all  two  or  three  hundred 

Roman  Catholic  priests  receive  State  grants  for  their  necessary 
services  as  chaplains  to  the  Irish  troops,  it  is  Africa,  not  India,  which 
has  of  late  called  forth  the  missionary  zeal  of  this  Church  under  men 
with  political  aims  like  the  late  Cardinal  Lavigerie,  and  those  who 
were  guilty  of  the  Uganda  scandal,  "During  the  year  1891,  309 
new  missionaries  left  Europe  for  the  purpose  of  taking  part  in  the 
evangelisation  of  heathen  countries.  Of  these  no  fewer  than  147 
were  of  French  nationality,  no  other  country  forwarding  an  equally 
large  contingent.  They  belonged,  moreover,  to  various  religious  con- 
gregations, that  which  supplied  the  most  of  them  being  the  recently 
founded  congregation  of  Don  Bosco,  which  sent  72  missionaries  to 
Africa  and  Patagonia.  In  the  year  1891,  195  nuns  of  various  religious 
congregations  likewise  left  Europe  ;  while  139  missionaries  are  reported 
as  having  died  whilst  engaged  in  missionary  labour," 


THE  JESUIT  ATTEMPT  76 

converts  of  both  sexes,"  but,  "  I  will  declare  it,  with  shame 
and  confusion,  that  I  do  not  remember  any.  one  who  may 
be  said  to  have  embraced  Christianity  from  conviction  and 
through  quite  disinterested  motives.  Among  these  new 
converts  many  apostatised."  Cardinal  Wiseman,  though 
quoting  the  Abbe  when  it  suits  his  object,  adopts  the 
opposite  opinion,  that  the  whole  world  is  to  be  converted 
to  Christianity,  and  that  the  Eomanists  alone  have  been 
generally  successful  in  their  efforts,  desiring  thus  to  support 
the  first  of  the  assaults,  which  continue  to  the  present  time 
with  unceasing  force,  against  the  Protestantism  of  Great 
Britain  and  America. 

Speaking  before  the  House  of .  Commons  Committee 
more  than  sixty  years  ago,  with  modesty,  with  gravity, 
and  with  charity  to  all,  James  Hough  uttered  this  pro- 
phecy,^ which,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  the  Holy  Spirit 
of  God,  in  whose  strength  he  spake,  has  largely  fulfilled 
and  is  daily  completing  : — 

"  How  could  we  expect  a  body  of  people  to  place  their 
confidence  in  religious  teachers  who  set  out  with  an 
imposture  1  On  the  other  hand,  I  would  account  for  the 
success  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  by  reverting  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  means  which  they  have  used  .  .  .  pre- 
cisely the  means  that  were  employed  by  the  primitive 
teachers  of  the  Christian  religion,  —  I  mean,  the  dis- 
semination of  the  Word  of  God,  the  diligent  preaching  of 
that  Word,  and  the  education  of  youth."  Then  follows 
the  unconscious  prophecy  now  being  realised :  "  If  the 
missionaries  persevered  in  the  course  which  they  have  hitherto 
taken,  nothing,  with  the  Divine  blessing  on  their  labours,  can 
prevent  them  from  ultimately  succeeding  in  diffusing  the  Christian 
religion  throughout  the  vast  continent  of  India." 

Persecuting  intolerance  like  that  embodied  in  the  In- 
quisition, audacious  deceit  like  that  of  the  Jesuits,  were 
not  the  only  antichristian  methods  by  which  the  Church 
of  Rome  sought  the  conversion  of  India.     It  was  the  first 

^  Page  131  in  Appendix  I.  to  The  Protestant  Missions  Vindicated 
against  the  As^Jersions  of  the  Rev.  N.  Wiseman,  D.D.,  involving  the 
Protestant  Eeligi&n^  1837.     London. 


76  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

to  apply  deliberately,  on  a  great  scale,  the  motive  of 
worldly  interest.  Writing  in  1546  to  the  Viceroy  of 
Goa,  John  III.  of  Portugal  laid  down  this  principle : 
"  Pagans  may  be  brought  over  to  our  religion  not  only 
by  the  hopes  of  salvation,  but  also  by  temporal  interest 
and  preferment."  The  order  accordingly  went  forth  that 
professing  converts  were  to  be  provided  with  places  in  the 
Customs,  to  be  exempted  from  impressment  for  the  navy, 
and  to  be  maintained  by  the  distribution  of  rice  from  the 
public  revenue.  In  peninsular  India  it  was  not  easy 
to  carry  this  into  effect.  But  jn  Ceylon  the  Buddhist 
character,  so  obsequious  to  power  and  indifferent  to  con- 
science, was  at  once  caught  by  the  material  bribes,  while 
the  Tamil  immigrants  from  the  opposite  coast  and  the 
fishermen  of  the  Gulf  of  Manaar  accepted  the  teaching 
of  Xavier,  and  have  ever  since  clung  to  it  as  raising  them 
in  the  social  scale.  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  is  satisfied  with 
the  evidence  that,  within  a  very  few  years  of  its  occupation 
by  the  Portuguese  in  1548,  almost  the  entire  population 
of  the  Jaffna  province  of  Ceylon,  including  even  the 
Brahmans,  had  submitted  to  be  baptized.^ 

In  1658  the  Dutch  ejected  the  Portuguese  from  the 
fortress  of  Jaff'na,  but  developed  on  a  still  greater  scale 
the  policy  of  securing  the  nominal  profession  of  Christi- 
anity as  the  price  of  office  and  worldly  advantage.  There 
is  no  nobler  page  in  history  than  that  which  records  the 
heroic  and  successful  struggles  of  the  United  Provinces 
against  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  nor  can  the  services  of  the 
house  of  Orange  to  the  spiritual  and  political  liberties  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  be  ever  forgotten.  It  was 
Queen  Elizabeth's  recognition  of  the  Dutch  Kepublic  as 
against  Spain  that  led  to  the  founding  of  the  London 
East  India  Company,  and  started  the  commercial  and 
political  movement  which  has  given  us  our  Indian  Empire. 
The  first  of  the  Protestant  peoples  to  trade  with  the  East, 
the  Dutch,  determined  that  the  Presbyterian  Church  should 
become  a  missionary  propaganda  to  the  races  of  India. 
For  this  purpose  Hugo  Grotius  wrote  his  great  work, 
^  Christianity  in  Ceylon.     London  (John  Murray),  1850. 


THE   DUTCH   ATTEMPT  77 

De  V&ritate  Religimis  Christiance,  which  was  translated  into 
the  principal  European  languages  as  well  as  Arabic.^  Ten 
years  before  the  Propaganda  College  at  Kome  was  estab- 
lished, or  in  1612,  Walaeus  founded  in  the  University  of 
Leyden,  itself  the  first  fruit  of  freedom,  a  college  for  the 
training  of  missionaries.  In  the  two  centuries  from  Grotius 
and  Walseus  to  Vanderkemp,  the  friend  of  Henry  Martyn, 
little  Holland  sent  forth  remarkable  missionaries.  But 
what  the  treatises  of  the  eighteenth  century  described  as 
"their  High  Mightinesses  the  illustrious  States -General 
of  the  Free  United  Netherlands  and  mighty  Dutch  East 
India  Company,"^  or  their  administrators  and  merchants 
in  the  Indies,  were  always  more  careful  as  to  their  com- 
mercial advantages  than  their  spiritual  calling. 

The  Dutch,  as  they  destroyed  the  power  of  Spain  and 
Portugal  in  India,  found  the  spice  trade  so  enormously 
valuable  that  they  sought  to  monopolise  it  in  the  islands 
of  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  and  so  both  directly  and  in- 
directly led  the  English  to  contine  their  principal  settle- 
ments to  the  peninsula  of  India  proper.  In  Formosa, 
where,  till  their  expulsion  by  Chinese  pirates  in  1661, 
their  missionaries  began  a  spiritual  work ;  ^  in  Amboyna, 
stained  by  their  massacre  of  the  English ;  in  Java,  Celebes, 
and  Sumatra,  which  was  given  up  to  them  after  Lord 
Minto's  expedition  and  the,  hopeful  administration  of  Sir 
Stamford  Eaffles,  the  Netherlands  East  Indian  Company 
exploited  the  populations  under  the  famous  culture  system 

^  From  Lipstadt  prison  Grotius  sent  forth  his  book,  in  which  he 
writes:  "My  design  was  to  undertake  something  which  might  be 
useful  to  my  countrymen,  especially  seamen,  who  in  their  long 
voyages  will  everywhere  meet  either  with  Pagans,  as  in  China  or 
Guinea ;  or  Mohammedans,  as  in  the  Turkish  and  Persian  Empires, 
and  in  the  kingdoms  of  Fez  and  Morocco ;  and  also  with  Jews,  who 
are  the  professed  enemies  of  Christianity,  and  are  dispersed  over  the 
greatest  part  of  the  world."  See  Dean  Clarke's  translation  (1805)  of 
Le  Clerc's  edition. 

2  See  Aitchison's  Collection^  vol.  v.  page  501,  for  the  last  treaty 
made  with  the  King  of  Kandy  or  Ceylon  in  1766. 

^  See  Missionary  Success  in  Formosa.     London,  1889. 


78  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

denounced  by  some  of  the  more  patriotic  Hollanders  at 
home.  The  Netherlands  and  the  Khenish  societies  con- 
ducted missions  there  with  varying  success  since  the 
English  withdrawal  under  the  treaty  of  1824.  But  it  is 
true  of  South-Eastern  as  of  Western  Asia,  that  Islam  has 
spread  its  baneful  half-civilisation  because  of  the  failure 
of  the  Christian  Churches. 

In  India  proper  the  Dutch  settlements  were  isolated 
and  few,  on  or  near  the  coast  at  Cochin,^  Negapatam, 
Palakollu,  and  Sadras,  and  at  Chinsurah  on  the  Hoogli 
Eiver  above  Calcutta,  where  Clive  brought  their  influence 
to  an  end  in  1759.  It  was  to  their  Governor  of  Palakollu, 
opposite  Ceylon,  in  1636,  that  the  King  of  Kandy  sent  an 
invitation  to  help  him  to  expel  the  Portuguese.  In  1642, 
six  years  after,  the  Eeformed  Church  of  Holland  was 
established  as  the  religion  of  the  new  colony.  The  State, 
and  that  a  foreign  power  seeking  commercial  profit  through 
a  monopoly  company,  established  its  own  Church,  with 
the  inevitable  results  of  intolerance  rising  to  persecution, 
especially  of  its  Roman  Catholic  predecessor,  and  a  wide- 
spread hypocrisy  with  an  equally  extensive  apostasy  on 
the  removal  of  the  State  pressure.  In  the  veracious 
pages  of  Baldseus,  one  of  the  first  Dutch  missionaries,  we 
can  trace  the  wholesale  unspiritual  process,  by  which,  with 
only  two  colleagues  to  help  him  where  there  had  been 
forty  priests,  in  the  northern  province  of  Jaffna,  the 
number  of  native  "  converts "  from  Hinduism  was  re- 
ported as  "exceeding  180,000,"  though  the  candid 
admission  was  made  that  "  they  still  retained  many  of  the 
superstitions  of  paganism."  In  the  southern  provinces  the 
Buddhists  were  told  by  plakaat,  or  proclamation,  that 
baptism,  communion  in  the  State  Church,  and  subscription 
to  the  Helvetic  Confession,  were  essential  preliminaries 
not  only  to  appointment  to  office,  but  even  to  farming  land. 

In  every  village  the  schoolhouse  became   the   church, 

*  The  Land  of  the  Permauls;  or,  Cochin  its  Past  and  its  Present,  by  the 
distinguished  naturalist,  Francis  Day,  F.L.S.,  of  the  JMadras  Medical 
Service  (Madras,  1863),  contains  the  best  account  of  the  Dutch  in  India 
proper,  based  on  the  official  records. 


THE  DUTCH  ATTEMPT  79 

and  the  schoolmaster  the  registrar  of  documents  involving 
the  rights  and  succession  to  property.  The  number  of 
children  under  instruction  and  baptized  rose  to  85,000. 
Nowhere  was  there  any  evidence  of  genuine  conversion, 
nor  were  there  missionaries  sufficient  to  give  simple 
instruction  in  Christian  truth.  In  despair  some  resorted 
to  attempts  to  forcibly  suppress  Buddhism,  and  others 
appealed  to  the  Church  at  home.  In  1700  the  Classis  of 
Amsterdam  remonstrated  with  the  Consistory  of  Colombo, 
reminding  it  that  compulsion  can  never  generate  con- 
viction, nor  penalties  inculcate  belief.  At  a  later  date 
the  Classis  declared  the  converts  to  be  sine  Christo  Christiani, 
so  few  were  communicants,  so  many  were  idolaters.  Not 
one  had  been  a  Moorman  or  Mohammedan,  all  were 
Tamils  or  Singhalese.  When  the  English  conquest  of 
the  Dutch  settlements  in  India  in  1782  was  followed  in 
1796  by  the  permanent  occupation  of  Ceylon,  the  articles 
of  capitulation  stipulated  that  "the  clergy  and  other 
ecclesiastical  servants  shall  continue  in  their  functions  and 
receive  the  same  pay  and  emoluments  as  they  had  from 
the  (Dutch)  Company." 

The  Dutch  Eeformed  Church  left  nearly  half  a  million  ^ 
professing  converts  in  Ceylon,  or  a  fourth  of  the  popula- 
tion at  that  time,  and  only  fourteen  clergy.  As  soon  as 
these  Asiatics  realised  the  fact  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment, under  the  benevolent  administration  of  the  Hon. 
Mr.  North,  afterwards  Earl  of  Guilford,  disowned  intoler- 
ance in  religion  while  enthusiastic  as  to  education,  and 
abolished  the  Dutch  penal  laws  against  Roman  Catholics, 
the  half -million  disappeared.  Till  1816  the  Article  of 
Capitulation  was  observed  so  far  that  the  Dutch  ministers 
were  reinforced  by  young  divines  from  Edinburgh,  while 
episcopal  congregations  were  placed  under  the  see  of 
Calcutta,  and  ultimately  under  a  bishop  of  their  own,  now 
no  longer  a  state  functionary.  In  1806  Claudius  Buchanan 
on  his  visit  pronounced  the  Eeformed  Christianity  to  be 
extinct  in  Ceylon.     Writing  in  1850  Sir  Emerson  Tennent 

^  At  the  same  time  the  "converts"  in  Java  were  reported  to  be 
100,000. 


80  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

declared  that  of  the  many  planted  by  Baldneus  and  Yalen- 
tyn,  and  even  by  the  great  Schwartz  during  a  year's  visit, 
not  a  single  congregation  existed. 

Portugal,  Holland,  and  France  in  India,  like  France  in 
America,  made  the  mistake  of  seeking  to  extend  their 
limits  without  securing  a  foothold  before  taking  further 
steps,  and  so  their  outlying  settlements  were  cut  off  and 
they  lost  India. 

The  first  attempt  of  the  Eeformed  Church  towards  the 
conversion  of  India  was  as  lamentable  a  failure  as  that  of 
the  preceding  Eomanists  and  Nestorians,  because  it  pro- 
ceeded on  similarly  false  and  unchristian  methods.  "  Such 
things  are  not  of  Christ,  nor  calculated  to  advance  His 
kingdom,"  as  the  Amsterdam  Classis  sadly  bewailed,  but 
in  vain.  Not  so  are  idolatry  and  caste,  the  Buddhist 
nihilism,  the  Mohammedan  fanaticism,  the  Parsee  dualism, 
and  the  Jewish  blindness  to  be  overcome,  and  self- 
propagating  Churches  and  spiritual  communities  called 
out  and  built  up  into  Christian  nations.  Like  Francis 
Xavier,  Baldseus  and  his  fellows  preached  through  inter- 
preters. The  watchwords  of  the  missionary  must  be 
these — the  vernacular  Bible,  vernacular  preaching,  daily 
teaching,  the  conversion  of  the  individual,  that  he  may  in 
turn  aggressively  propagate  the  faith  which  he  has  received. 
AYhere  these  have  been  so  long  and  persistently  applied 
under  the  continual  sense  of  the  influence  and  aid  of  the 
Spirit  sent  by  Christ  to  enable  His  disciples  to  do  greater 
works  than  even  those  of  His  public  ministry,  Christianity 
necessarily  triumphs,  is  consolidated  and  becomes  the  life 
of  nations  and  of  races  all  down  the  centuries,  for  it  is 
the  assured  hope  and  stimulus  of  every  true  believer. 

So  apostolic  Christianity  swept  away  the  paganism  of 
Greece  and  of  Eome.  So  post-apostolic  Christianity  won 
over  the  northern  nations.  So  the  teaching  of  John  the 
divine  and  Paul  the  apostle  of  the  nations,  in  particular, 
early  seized  all  the  powers  of  the  Scots  of  Ireland  and  lona, 
through  them  transformed  the  Saxons  and  the  Germans, 
and  sent  forth  the  sw^arms  of  the  English-speaking  peoples 
west  and  south  and  east.     It  was  possible  for  whole  tribes 


THE  DUTCH  ATTEMPT  81 

to  follow  their  chief  down  into  the  waters  of  baptism,  for 
they  at  once  joined  an  organisation  which  absorbed  them 
and  their  children  in  a  generation.  But  where,  as  in  the 
far  East,  in  Cathay  and  India  proper,  and  Farther  India, 
heathenism  was,  and  is  still  apparently,  a  compact  mass 
bound  together  by  caste  and  ritual,  and  Islam  is  a  brother- 
hood fanatical  in  its  conceit,  nothing  short  of  the  trans- 
formation by  the  Spirit  of  God  of  each  separate  convert 
will  suffice  for  the  first  story  of  the  living  temple  which 
is  to  grow  upward  and  outward  from  the  Eock,  till  all 
nations  flow  into  it.  The  same  spiritual  influence,  the 
same  sweet  persuasion  which  swept  away  paganism  in 
four  centuries  will  alone,  but  most  certainly,  destroy  the 
lie  of  Mohammedanism  and  the  idolatry  of  the  East. 


THE  BRITISH  EAST  INDIA   COMPANY'S  WORK  OF 
PREPARATION 

**  The  law  was  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  unto  Christ." — Gal.  iii.  24. 

Three  hundred  years  ago,  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  conversion  of  India  seemed  more  distant 
than  in  the  third,  when  the  post-apostolic  missionary 
Pantsenus  left  his  college  at  Alexandria  for  the  primitive 
Christian  settlements  in  Malabar.  At  times,  in  the  inter- 
vening centuries,  all  Asia  had  been  open  to  the  Eiiropean 
with  the  divine  message  intrusted  to  him  for  its  proclama- 
tion, as  inner  Asia  is  not  open  even  now.  Yet  Buddhism 
on  the  one  side  and  Mohammedanism  on  the  other  had 
proved  to  be  the  successful  missionary  religions  from 
Peking  to  Ceylon,  and  from  Constantinople  right  across  the 
continent  to  Malaysia.  The  Greek  and  the  Latin  Churches 
had  added  two  small  sects  to  the  multitude  whom 
Brahmanism  tolerated  and  disarmed,  since  the  elder  Aryans 
first  crossed  the  Indus  on  their  southward  march.  That 
was  all.  The  Reformation  of  the  Latin  Church  had, 
meanwhile,  been  doctrinally  completed  in  Europe,  and  the 
Dutch  Protestants  had  begun  their  attempt  to  Christianise 
the  natives  of  the  farther  East  on  lines  almost  as  contrary 
to  those  of  Jesus  Christ  as  their  predecessors.  Each  of 
the  three  organised  missions  had  come  short  of  that  which 
went  before  it.  The  Nestorian  departed  from  the  orthodox 
teaching  of  Alexandria,  and,  by  adopting  a  compromise  as 


THE  EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  83 

to  the  person  of  Christ,  ceased  to  be  aggressive,  yet  was 
itself  always  tolerant,  and  remained  true  to  its  Persian 
faith.  The  Roman  began  by  deceiving  and  persecuting 
first  the  Nestorian,  then  the  Mohammedan,  and  then  the 
Hindu,  till  the  Papal  supremacy  which  was  thus  propa- 
gated led  to  the  disappearance  of  the  political  power  of 
Portugal  in  the  East  almost  altogether.  The  Dutch  ex- 
periment, especially  in  Ceylon,  exhausted  the  evil  methods 
of  spreading  any  faith  or  any  truth.  So  far  as  the  millions 
of  Asia  were  concerned.  Christians  had  discredited  the 
name  and  the  claims  of  Jesus  Christ  on  every  man  whose 
nature  He,  in  His  love  and  in  His  pity,  had  taken  to 
redeem  him. 

The  English  were  now,  in  God's  providence,  led  all  un- 
consciously to  take  the  first  step  in  the  extension  of  the 
kingdom  described  by  its  Founder  as  "  not  of  this  world." 
The  Scottish  patriots  and  reformers  had  taught  England 
and  the  world  the  true  principles  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty.^  Elizabeth,  forced  into  the  position  of  the  defender 
of  these  liberties  against  the  Papal  League,  had  broken 
the  power  of  Spain,  and  had  helped  to  independence  the 
Dutch,  a  little  nation  of  sailors  and  traders  who  speedily 
made  their  way  to  the  East.  Then  in  1599  they  raised 
the  price  of  pepper  against  the  English  from  three  shillings 
to  eight  shillings  a  pound.  This  was  too  much  for  the 
Lord  Mayor  and  merchants  of  London,  who  resolved  to 
form  an  association  of  their  own  for  direct  trade  with 
India,  and  induced  the  Queen  to  send  Sir  John  Mildenhall 
by  Constantinople  to  the  Great  Mogul  to  secure  privileges 
for  the  new  company.^  On  the  last  day  of  the  year  1600, 
in  the  forty-third  year  of  her  reign.  Queen  Elizabeth 
signed  the  first  charter  creating  "one  Body  Corporate 
and  Politick,  in  Deed  and  in  Name,  by  the  name  of  the 
Governor  and  Company  of  Merchants  of  London  trading  into  the 
Bast  Indies,"  and  nominating  Alderman  Thomas  Smith  as 

1  See  Hill  Burton's  History. 

2  See  Sir  George  Birdwood's  Report  on  Old  Hecords  in  the  India 


84  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

first  Governor  with  twenty -four  "  committees  "  or  directors, 
all  to  be  elected  annually  thenceforth  by  the  shareholders, 
then  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  in  number,  wdth  a  capital 
of  £70,000.  Out  of  the  vindication  of  spiritual  liberty 
by  Scots,  Hollanders,  and  English,  and  because  of  the 
monopoly  price  of  pepper,  there  sprang  the  East  India 
Company.  So  out  of  the  American  vindication  of  liberty 
and  the  cargo  of  the  Company's  tea  in  Boston  harbour 
there  leapt  into  independence  the  United  States.  Thus, 
"  by  a  way  that  they  knew  not,"  by  a  strange  irony,  were 
the  two  English-speaking  peoples  first  prepared  for  the 
conversion  of  India. 

The  England  of  Elizabeth's  day  did  not  think  of  its 
duty  to  the  peoples  of  the  East  any  more  than  the 
Reformed  Churches  of  Europe  at  that  time,  although  the 
charters  granted  to  the  proprietary  colonies  in  America  did 
recognise  the  call  to  give  the  gospel  to  the  Indians.  The 
new^  East  India  Company's  charter  provided  only  "that 
they  at  their  own  Adventures,  Costs,  and  Charges,  as  well 
for  the  Honour  of  this  our  Eealm  of  England  as  for  the 
Increase  of  our  Navigation  and  Advancement  of  Trade  of 
Merchandise  with  our  said  Eealms  and  the  Dominions  of 
the  same,  might  adventure  to  set  forth  one  or  more 
Voyages  ....  in  the  Countries  and  Parts  of  Asia  and 
Africa  ....  to  the  benefit  of  our  Commonwealth."  We 
search  the  twenty-four  printed  quarto  pages  of  that  first 
charter  ^  in  vain  for  any  allusion  to  the  natives  of  these 
regions,  among  which  Africa  is  specially  mentioned,  or  to 
any  other  object  than  commerce.  But  none  the  less  did 
that  document  start  all  who  use  the  speech  and  read  the 
literature  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  days  on  the  missionary 
enterprise.  The  East  India  Company  lasted  257  years, 
during  one-half  of  which  it  was  a  trading,  and  during  the 
other  half  a  political  and  administrative  organisation, 
while  all  through  its  history,  when  it  departed  from  the 
principles  of  toleration,  it  was  hostile  to  Christian  missions 

^  Charters  granted  to  tlie  East  India  Company  from  1601,  also  the 
Treaties  and  Grants  made  ivith  and  obtained  from  the  Princes  and 
Powers  in  India  from  the  year  1766  to  1772. 


THE  EAST   INDIA  COMPANY'S   WORK  85 

from  a  blinded  selfishness.  Yet  it  was  used  by  the 
Sovereign  Ruler  of  the  human  race  to  prepare  the  way 
and  open  wide  the  door  for  the  first  hopeful  and  ulti- 
mately assuredly  successful  attempt,  since  the  apostolic 
Church  swept  away  paganism,  to  destroy  the  idolatrous 
and  Musalman  cults  of  Asia. 

The  greatest  legal  intellect  of  this  generation,  Sir  Henry 
Sumner  Maine,  who  has  recently  passed  away,  recog- 
nised this  when,  in  December  1857,^  writing  on  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  East  India  Company,  then  under  discussion 
and  effected  on  the  1st  November  1858,  he  exclaimed  : 
"  That  Board  of  Administrators,  which  traces  its  pedigree 
to  a  company  of  merchants,  just  as  the  most  famous  and 
durable  polity  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  born  among  the 
traffickers  of  the  Venetian  lagunes !  The  East  India 
Company,  it  would  be  impossible  to  reflect  without 
emotion  on  the  extinction  of  so  mighty  a  name  !  That 
wonderful  succession  of  events  which  has  brought  the 
youngest  civilisation  of  the  world  to  instruct  and  correct 
the  oldest,  which  has  reunited  those  wings  of  the  Indo- 
European  race  which  separated  in  the  far  infancy  of  time 
to  work  out  their  strangely  different  missions,  which  has 
avenged  the  miscarriage  of  the  Crusades  by  placing  the 
foot  of  the  most  fervently  believing  of  Christian  nations 
on  the  neck  of  the  mightiest  of  Mahometan  dynasties,  will 
inevitably  be  read  by  posterity  as  the  work  not  of  England, 
but  of  the  English  East  India  Company." 

Queen  Elizabeth's  charter  of  1600  was  renewed, 
amplified,  modified  by  charters  and  letters  patent  by 
James  I.,  Charles  I.,  Cromwell,  Charles  II. — who  sought  to 
obliterate  all  trace  of  the  great  Protector's  action — William 
III.,  under  whom,  in  1709,  it  became  "The  United 
Company  of  Merchants  of  England  trading  to  the  East 
Indies,"  in  return  for  heavy  loans  to  the  State  for  its 
monopoly,  and  thereafter  by  Parliament  every  twenty 
years  till  1853,  the  last.  These  charters  mark  the 
successive  victories  of  free  trade  and  toleration,  through 
which  Christianity  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
^  The  Saturday  Eeview. 


86  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

India  took  its  place  as  the  one  divine  religion,  and  because 
divine,  to  be  commended  to  every  man's  conscience  by  its 
own  self -evidencing  authority,  and  sweet  persuasiveness 
alone.  No  sovereignty  with  physical  force,  no  Church 
with  inquisition  tortures,  no  republic  with  equally 
intolerant  enforcement  by  self-interest,  but  a  company 
royally  chartered  to  bring  an  empire  to  the  birth,  and 
create  for  the  Christian  Church,  as  for  all  cults,  an 
environment  of  law  and  order,  of  peace  and  liberty,  of 
fair  play  and  neutrality,  such  as  even  the  Roman  Empire 
never  secured  !  The  "  Pax  Britannica "  and  all  that  it 
involves  for  India  began  with  the  charter  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  We  may  more  accurately  describe  what 
Christian  Britain  and  America  have  done  and  are  doing 
for  the  peoples  of  the  East,  as  the  "  Pax  Evangelica." 

The  royal  prerogative  of  granting  by  charter  powers 
and  privileges  not  inconsistent  with  the  law  of  the  land, 
and  generally  in  later  times  confirmed  by  Parliament,  has 
never  been  exercised  with  such  beneficent  results,  not  even 
in  our  own  days  when  British  Borneo  and  British  Africa 
have  similarly  received  the  protecting  and  civilising 
influence  of  the  empire.  In  India  three  centuries  ago  the 
chartered  company  preceded  the  evangelical  missionary,  at 
a  time  when  vital,  aggressive  Christianity  was  under  eclipse, 
and  consequently  was  long  in  asserting  its  inherent  right 
to  go  everywhere  subject  to  the  powers  that  be,  but  in 
defiance  of  them  if  their  orders  conflicted  with  those  of  the 
Kingdom  that  is  universal  and  everlasting.  In  Africa,  in 
the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  missionary  has, 
happily,  gone  before  traders  and  administrators,  taking  his 
life  in  his  hand  and  opening  up  regions  the  white  man 
never  knew,  for  which  the  politicians  have  scrambled. 
This  we  owe  to  one  man,  David  Livingstone,  and  to  that 
foresight  of  his  which  was  misunderstood  by  his  own 
missionary  society.  It  is  inevitable  that  settled  govern- 
ment should  follow  the  missionary  among  barbarian 
peoples  as  they  begin  to  receive  Christianity.  The  late 
Sir  William  Mackinnon's  British  East  Africa  Company  has 
saved  Uganda,  and  given  hope  to  that  continent  from  the 


THE  EAST  INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  87 

Indian  Ocean  to  the  Nile.  The  Niger  and  South  African 
'Companies  and  the  Borneo  Company  are  blessings  to  the 
native  peoples  under  their  influence.  But  none  of  them, 
even  with  all  the  advantages  of  the  present  day,  approach 
in  value  and  importance  the  East  India  Company,  of  which 
they  are  in  a  sense  the  offspring. 

In  the  two  and  a  half  centuries  from  the  great  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  the  greater  Queen-Empress  Victoria  the 
Chartered  Company  was  a  happy  device,  and  was  on  the 
whole  happily  worked,  to  prepare  both  the  varied  millions 
of  India  and  their  ultimate  rulers  in  the  West  to  come 
face  to  face  with  each  other  at  the  set  time  of  God's  pro- 
vidence. In  the  Mutiny  of  1857,  the  last  remaining 
elements  of  disorder  and  crime — in  removing  which  the 
East  India  Company  had  spent  a  period  equal  to  that  of 
the  Roman  Empire  between  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
elevation  of  Constantine,  while  it  consolidated  a  progress- 
ive empire — burst  forth  and  were  swiftly  extinguished. 
Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  the  latest  and  the  ablest  writer  on  India, 
represents  the  Chartered  Company  as  invented  to  suit  the 
conditions  of  existence  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century'- 
in  Europe  and  the  East,  "  for  extending  commerce,  and  for 
securing  it  by  territorial  appropriations,  without  directly 
pledging  a  government  to  answer  for  the  acts  of  its  sub- 
jects." ^  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  greatest  political  thinker 
of  the  last  generation,  whose  father,  the  historian,  drafted 
many  of  the  East  India  Company's  despatches  in  Leaden- 
hall  Street,  where  Charles  Lamb  also  was  a  clerk,  devotes 
the  last  chapter  of  his  Representative  Government  ^  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  Government  of  Dependencies  by  a  Free 
State.  Even  that  cultured  Eadical  lamented  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  East  India  Company,  and  the  substitution 
for  it  of  uninformed  party  government  in  distant  London. 
It  has  been  the  destiny  of  the  Company,  he  writes,  "to 
suggest  the  true  theory  of  the  government  of  a  semi- 
barbarous  dependency  by  a  civilised  country,  and,  after 
having  done  this,  to  perish." 

^  See  TJie  Hise  of  the  British  Doniinion  in  India.  London,  Jolin 
Murray,  1893.  «  London,  1861. 


88  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

In  its  relation  to  the  propagation  of  Christianity  the 
East  India  Company  reflected  the  opinion  and  the  action 
of  England  itself.  So  long  as  it  was  a  purely  trading 
organisation,  it  was  careful  to  give  instructions  for  the 
moral  good  of  its  own  officials  and  was  indifferent  to  that 
of  the  natives.  It  was  tolerant  of,  it  even  helped  mission- 
aries like  Schwartz  and  Kiernander  up  to  the  time  of  Clive. 
But  as  it  grew  to  be  a  territorial  and  political  power  its 
servants  practically  encouraged  the  native  faiths,  and  kept 
out  Christian  missionaries  under  the  rules  passed  to  pro- 
tect the  monopoly  of  trade  against  interlopers.  Schwartz, 
indeed,  was  honoured,  and  the  Company  erected  his  marble 
tomb  in  Madras,  but  at  the  very  same  time  Carey  was 
smuggled  into  Bengal  in  a  Danish  ship,  and  was  suftered  to 
remain  only  as  an  indigo  planter  with  a  license.  Up  to 
the  charter  of  1833  passports  were  necessary  for  a  mis- 
sionary like  Alexander  DufF.  The  Company's  opposition 
to  missions,  indeed,  became  virulent  so  late  as  1807,  and 
after  the  Yellore  Mutiny,  when  some  were  deported,  with 
the  providential  result  that  Judson  took  the  gospel  to 
Burma,  and  others  to  Ceylon  and  the  Indian  Archipelago. 
"  They  that  preached  the  word  were  scattered  abroad." 

Let  us  look  at  the  process.  From  the  first  the  Directors 
of  the  East  India  Company  recognised  and  enforced  their 
duty  to  their  own  servants  by  sending  them  many  good 
counsels  and  a  few  chaplains.^  The  commanders  of  the 
little  ships  used  in  the  first  five  voyages  to  the  East, 
measuring  from  130  to  600  tons, — men  like  Lancaster, 
Middleton,  and  Keeling,  who  in  1607  carried  King  James's 
first  ambassador,  Hawkins,  to  Jahangir  at  Agra, — were  ex- 
horted "first  to  depend  confidentlie  upon  Codes  providence," 
to  see  to  the  due  execution  of  religious  worship,  setting 
apart  "  certeine  hours  and  tymes  in  every  day  for  publique 
prayer  and  calling  on  the  name  of  God,  and  to  put  down 
blasphemy,  idle  and  filthy  communications  and  dice-play- 
ing." When  on  the  defeat  of  the  Portuguese  fleet  by  Cap- 
tain Best,  leader  of  the  tenth  voyage  in   1612,  the  first 

^  Sir  George  BirdAvood  has  done  service  by  editing  The  Register  of 
Letters  of  the  Com;pany  from  1600  to  1619.     (Quaritch)  1893. 


THE  EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WOPvK  89 

English  factory  was  founded  at  Surat,  and  afterwards  at 
Madras,  Hoogli,  and  Calcutta,  a  chaplain  was  settled  at  each. 
The  first  with  whose  name  we  meet  was  Henry  Lord,  so 
early  as  1616.  A  good  as  well  as  an  able  man,  he  was  in- 
duced to  leave  one  of  the  English  ships  for  the  Surat 
Factory,  where  he  found  another  chaplain,  named  Lescke. 
Lord  was  the  first  of  all  Orientalists  in  point  of  time,  for 
he  carefully  studied  the  literature  and  mythology  of  the 
Hindu,  Mohammedan,  and  Parsee'  communities ;  ^  and  Sir 
Thomas  Herbert  and  Bernier  acknowledge  their  indebted- 
ness to  him. 

He  is  described  as  "  preacher  to  the  Honourable  Com- 
pany of  Merchants " ;  and  in  Kerridge, .  the  governor, 
he  found  a  man  of  like  mind.  At  the  same  time  one 
Joseph  Salbank  Avas  sent  to  Agra  as  Company's  factor 
there.  A  shrewd  and  honest  but  illiterate  person,  he 
showed  himself  a  true  missionary  when  he  wrote  home, 
urging  the  Company  to  send  out  "  not  only  solid  and  suffi- 
cient divines  that  may  be  able' to  encounter  with  the  arch- 
enemies of  our  religion,  but  also  godly,  zealous,  and 
devout  persons,  such  as  may,  by  their  piety  and  purity  of 
life,  give  good  example  to  those  with  whom  they  live." 
The  next  vacancy  at  Surat  that  occurred  was  caused  by 
the  death  of  the  Rev.  John  Hall,  Fellow  of  Corpus  Christi, 
Oxford,  and  he  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Terry,  who  was 
chaplain  of  the  embassy  of  Sir  Thomas  Koe.  His  narra- 
tive is  most  honourable  to  his  character.  He  is  the  author 
of  the  too  true  report,  that  the  natives  said  of  the  English, 
whom  alone  they  knew,  "  Christian  religion,  devil  religion  ; 
Christian  much  drunk ;  Christian  much  do  wrong ;  much 
beat ;  much  abuse  others."  Sir  Thomas  Roe  w^rote  in  the 
same  strain,  often  protesting  against  the  despatch  of  hope- 
less young  men  and  the  arrival  of  runaway  adventurers 
for   whom   he  had    to   provide.     It  is  sad  to   read  of  a 

^  A  Bis'play  of  Tivo  Foraigne  Sects  in  the  East  Indies,  vizt-  the  Sect 
df  the  Banians,  the  Ancient  Natives  of  India,  and  the  Sect  of  the  Pcrsees, 
the  Ancient  Inhabitants  of  Persia,  together  with  the  Religion  and  Manners 
of  each  Sect,  Collected  into  two  Bookes.  By  Henry  Lord.  Imprinted  at 
London  for  Francis  Constable,  1630. 


90  THE   CONVERSION  OF    INDIA 

Herbert,  one  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  and  the  saintly 
George  Herbert's  blood,  thus  shipped  out  to  India.  All 
that  can  be  said  in  apology  for  the  lives  of  the  first  English 
traders  in  the  East  is,  that  they  were  no  worse  than  the 
class  to  which  they  belonged  at  home  under  the  Stewarts. 

When  Cromwell  guided  affairs  devout  men  were  no 
longer  afraid  to  show  their  religion,  even  in  India,  and  the 
despatches  savoured  of  Puritanism.  The  letters  to  the 
Court  of  Directors  at  this  period  always  end  with  some 
such  formula  as  "commending  you  to  God's  merciful 
guidance."  The  report  of  the  death  of  a  factor  is  followed 
by  the  words,  "  God  of  His  mercy  so  direct  our  hearts,  who 
must  follow  him,  that  we  may  be  always  ready  for  the  like 
sudden  summons."  When  governors  of  good  family  and 
high  character  were  in  power,  like  Oxenden,  Aungier,  and 
Streynsham  Masters,  the  chaplain  was  next  in  precedence 
to  members  of  council,  and  his  pay  was  in  proportion. 
Prayers  were  offered  morning  and  evening  in  the  factory, 
and  thrice  on  Sunday,  when  at  least  one  sermon  was 
preached.  But  the  practice  of  the  English  was  still  after 
the  approved  fashion  of  the  Book  of  Sports.  The  sermon 
was  followed  by  shooting  and  gambling  in  the  suburbs. 
The  Dutch  were  the  only  foreign  power  who  took  care  to 
provide  wives  for  their  servants.  The  Portuguese  allied 
themselves  with  the  natives,  and  the  result  is  seen  now 
in  the  degradation  of  the  race. 

Not  till  1681  was  the  first  English  church  begun  in 
India.  The  good  Oxenden  had  raised  money,  and  had 
also  appealed  to  the  Directors  for  a  building  in  which  the 
English  should  worship,  and  the  natives  "observe  the 
purity  and  gravity  of  our  devotions."  He  passed  away, 
but  his  successor  Aungier  did  not  let  the  project  drop. 
He  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  "  the  merciful  plea- 
sure of  God  should  touch  the  natives  with  a  sense  of  the 
eternal  welfare  of  their  souls."  But  Sir  John  Child  is 
said  to  have  made  away  with  the  £5000  collected  for  thg 
purpose,  and  it  was  not  till  three-quarters  of  a  century 
later  that,  in  1718,  St.  Thomas's  Cathedral  was  erected  at 
Bombay.     Aungier's  friend,  Streynsham  Masters,  however, 


THE  EAST  INDIA   COMPANY'S  WORK  91 

was  promoted  to  be  chief  at  Madras,  and  there  he  built  a 
church  at  his  own  cost,  unconsecrated,  and  described  by  a 
visitor  in  1703  as  a  large  pile  of  arched  buildings.  It  is 
to  the  administration  of  that  good  man  that  we  owe  such 
orders  as  these  in  the  Madras  Records  of  1678,  although 
the  Second  Charles  was  reigning :  "  Forasmuch  as,  by 
persons  of  all  professions,  the  name  of  God  ought  to  be 
hallowed.  His  service  attended  upon,  and  His  blessing  upon 
men's  endeavours  sought  by  daily  prayers,  as  the  quality 
therefore  of  our  place  and  imployment  requires,  and  in 
discharge  of  our  duty  both  to  God  and  man — First,  we 
doe  Ghristianly  admonish  every  one  imployed  in  the 
service  of  the  Honorable  English  East  India  Company 
to  abandon  lying,  swearing,  curseing,  drunkenness,  un- 
cleanness,  prophanation  of  the  Lord's  day,  and  all  other 
sinfull  practices,  and  not  to  sleep,  be  drunk,  or  abusive 
upon  or  absent  from  their  watch,  or  from  their  houses 
or  quarters  late  at  night,  nor  absent  from  or  neglect  morning 
and  evening  Prayers,  nor  committ  any  offence  to  the  dis- 
honor of  Almighty  God,  the  corruption  of  good  manners, 
or  against  the  peace  of  the  government."  Again,  this 
entry  occurs  :  "  Nine  boys  that  repeated  the  Catechism 
by  heart  in  the  Chapel  on  the  Lord's  day,  to  have  2  rupees 
each  for  their  encouragement,  according  to  the  Honorable 
Company's  order." 

When  the  "English  Company"  was  established  in 
opposition  to  the  East  India  Company's  monopoly,  and 
each  appealed  against  the  other  to  the  King  and  to  Parlia- 
ment, the  new  corporation  finally  prevailed,  and  in  1698 
obtained  a  charter,  which  applied  to  both  when  in  1708 
they  united.  The  document  is  of  great  value  from  its 
provisions  for  an  educational  and  a  missionary  as  well  as 
a  religious  establishment.  A  schoolmaster  and  minister 
were  to  be  maintained  in  every  garrison  and  superior 
factory,  a  decent  place  was  to  be  set  aside  for  divine 
worship,  and  every  ship  of  500  tons  burden  was  to  carry 
a  chaplain.  The  clergy  were  to  be  approved  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  or  Bishop  of  London,  and  were  to 
be  treated  with  respect.     All  were  to  learn  Portuguese 


92  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

within  a  jea,Y  after  their  arrival,  and  were  to  study 
the  vernacular  language,  "the  better  to  enable  them  to 
instruct  the  Gentoos,  that  shall  be  the  servants  or  slaves 
of  the  same  Company,  or  of  their  agents,  in  the  Protestant 
religion."  In  the  first  century  of  the  Company's  settle- 
ments in  India  the  whole  number  of  cha2:)lains  did  not 
exceed  nineteen — a  small  number,  if  we  reflect  on  the 
terrible  mortality  of  European  life  in  the  East  in  these 
early  times.  On  the  accession  of  William  the  factors  in 
Western  India  had  not  one  chaplain,  and  begged  their 
masters  to  send  them  "two  good  orthodox  ministers," 
along  with  "a  little  good  English  beer,  as  they  call  stout, 
and  a  little  wine  from  your  honours." 

A  few  years  before  the  charter  of  King  William,  the 
East  India  Company's  agent  at  the  Bengal  Factory  of 
Hoogli,  having  quarrelled  with  the  local  authorities,  moved 
down  the  river  of  that  name  some  thirty  miles  to  the 
village  of  Kalkatta,  so  called  from  the  adjoining  temple 
of  the  devouring  Kali,  which  is  still  the  most  famous 
Hindu  shrine  in  the  country.  It  was  on  the  20th  De- 
cember 1686,  and  under  the  last  of  the  great  emperors  of 
Delhi,  Aurangzeb,  that  the  English  took  possession  of  the 
spot  destined  to  form  a  century  after  the  metropolis,  not 
merely  of  British  India,  but  of  Southern  Asia,  with  a  pre- 
sent population  of  a  million  of  souls.  In  due  time  Fort 
William  was  built,  and  named  in  honour  of  the  king.  By 
1710,  when  there  were  1200  English,  consisting  of  the 
troops,  the  civilians,  the  sailors,  and  some  private  merchants 
residing  there,  and  when  in  one  year  460  burials  had  been 
registered  in  the  clerk's  book  of  mortality,  the  residents 
subscribed  for  the  erection  of  a  handsome  church.  A 
visitor  of  those  days  represents  the  chief  persons  in  the 
Fort  as  regular  in  their  observance  of  the  public  worship 
of  God.  But  the  lives  led  by  the  majority  of  the  residents 
may  be  imagined  from  the  orders  of  the  Court  of  Directors, 
who  sent  out  strict  rules  for  the  conduct  of  their  subordi- 
nates, and  also  directed  the  use  of  a  form  of  prayer,  be- 
seeching God  "that  these  Indian  nations,  amongst  whom 
we  dwell,  seeing  our  sober   and    righteous   conversation, 


THE   EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S    WOKK  93 

may  be  induced  to  have  a  great  esteem  for  our  most  holy 
profession  of  the  gospel." 

The  new  Protestant  church  did  not  prosper.  The 
cyclone  of  1737,  accompanied  by  an  earthquake,  levelled 
its  spire,  and  the  chaplains  died  so  rapidly,  that  young 
merchants  were  allowed  an  addition  of  £50  a  year  to  their 
salary  to  read  prayers  and  a  sermon  every  Sunday.  Cap- 
tain Alexander  Hamilton,  who  spent  the  period  from  1688 
to  1723  in  travelling  by  sea  and  land  between  the  Cape 
and  Japan,  draws  this  picture  of  the  ecclesiastical  affairs 
of  the  place — "  In  Calcutta  all  religions  are  tolerated  but 
the  Presbyterians,  and  they  are  browbeat.  The  pagans 
carry  their  idols  in  procession  through  the  town.  The 
Roman  Catholics  have  their  church  to  lodge  their  images 
in,  and  the  Mohammedans  are  not  discountenanced ;  but 
there  are  no  polemics  except  what  are  between  our 
High  Churchmen  and  our  Low."  In  1756  old  Calcutta 
was  swept  away  by  Sooraj  -  ood  -  Dowlah.  St.  John's 
Church,  to  which  the  governor,  the  civilians,  and  the 
troops  had  walked  in  procession,  was  destroyed.  Of  its 
two  chaplains,  one,  the  Rev.  Jervis  Bellamy,  was  found 
lying  dead  among  the  victims  of  the  Black  Hole  tragedy, 
hand-in-hand  with  his  son,  a  young  lieutenant.  The  other, 
the  Rev.  R.  Mapletoft,  had  escaped  down  the  river,  but 
there  only  to  die  with  many  more  of  malarious  fever. 

The  next  thirty  years  proved  as  sad  a  time  for  religion 
in  Bengal  as  they  were  remarkable  for  the  conquests  of 
Clive  and  Warren  Hastings.  The  compensation  exacted 
for  the  loss  of  the  church  was  applied  to  the  foundation 
of  the  free  school  for  the  illegitimate  children  of  the  resi- 
dents. The  Protestants,  the  Portuguese  Catholics,  and  the 
Armenians  worshipped  all  that  time  in  thatched  chapels. 
There  were  chaplains,  but  few  cared  to  attend  the  services. 
The  population,  of  whom  some  2000  were  Europeans, 
grew  to  half  a  million,  for  whose  instruction  nothing  was 
done.  Even  our  own  soldiers  were  neglected,  for  it  hap- 
pened more  than  once  that  profane  commanding  ofHcers 
refused  to  allow  a  sermon  to  be  preached  to  them.  Ten- 
nant,  a  military  chaplain,  wrote :  "  It  must  happen  that 


94  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

many  persons  have  left  England  at  an  early  age,  and 
resided  in  India  for  twenty  or  thirty  years,  without  once 
having  heard  divine  service  till  their  return."  Even  later 
than  this,  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  was  not  allowed  to 
preach,  save  in  his  own  house,  during  the  three  years  that 
he  was  chaplain  to  the  troops  at  Barrackpore,  within  twelve 
miles  of  Calcutta.    But  few  were  like  Claudius  Buchanan. 

Lord  Teignmouth,  when  Governor- General,  reported  to 
the  Court  of  Directors  thus  in  1795: — "Our  clergy  in 
Bengal,  with  some  exceptions,  are  not  respectable  charac- 
ters. Their  situation  is  arduous,  considering  the  general 
relaxation  of  morals  from  which  a  black  coat  is  no  security." 
The  truth  is,  the  chaplains  had  been  as  badly  paid  as  the 
rest  of  the  Company's  servants,  so  that  they  were  driven 
to  private  trade,  and  even  gambling,  to  live.  Gradually 
their  salary  had  been  raised  from  £50  to  £230  a  year, 
and  in  1764  an  addition  of  <£120  was  made  because  of  the 
great  increase  of  expenses  in  Calcutta.  ■  They  had  shares 
in  Clive's  monopolies  of  salt,  betel-nut,  and  tobacco,  which 
enabled  some  of  them  to  retire  with  fortunes  rising  to 
£50,000.  An  undoubtedly  able  and  evangelical  minister, 
the  Rev.  John  Owen,  who  was  a  friend  of  Cecil,  came 
home  with  £25,000  after  ten  years'  service.  And  if  such 
were  the  ministers  and  the  laity  in  and  around  the  capital, 
where  the  Governor- General  himself,  Warren  Hastings, 
and  his  malicious  colleague.  Sir  Philip  Francis,  lived  openly 
in  adultery,  what  shall  we  say  then  of  the  lives  of  officers, 
civil  and  military,  in  the  far-out  stations  ?  Many  had 
zananas,  where,  as  one  described  it,  they  allowed  their 
numerous  black  wives  to  run  about  picking  up  a  little  rice, 
while  they  pleased  them  by  worshipping  their  favourite 
idol. 

All  this  time  and  up  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  Wellesley  became  Governor -General,  the 
East  India  Company  had  been  laying  the  foundations  of 
an  empire  amid  the  chaotic  ruins  of  Aurangzeb's.  It  was 
no  blind  chance  that  led  its  administrators  in  India,  from 
the  time  when  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay  stood  forth 
as  the  independent  centres  of  a  power  that  enlisted  its  own 


THE  EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  95 

sepoys  and  white  soldiers,  that  collected  revenue  from 
land  and  customs,  and  coined  money  in  its  own  name. 
Olive  and  Warren  Hastings,  at  least,  were  deliberate  con- 
querors, and  by  no  means  stumbled  into  empire.  From 
Mohammedan  intolerance,  from  Maratha  savagery,  and 
from  French  Catholicism  of  the  type  that  had  failed  in 
Portugal's  hands,  and  has  failed  elsewhere  up  to  our  own 
day  as  in  Algeria,  Central  Africa,  and  Anam,  they  saved 
the  peoples  of  India.  It  was  not  for  such  men  to  do  more ; 
and  they  did  that  with  a  pure  patriotism  and  a  stern 
courage  which  place  them  higher  in  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  Christian  empire  than  any  of  those  who 
attacked  them — than  any  contemporary  statesmen  up  to 
George  Washington.  He  indeed  did  a  similar,  and  in  one 
sense  a  parallel  work  in  the  West  under  very  different 
conditions,  both  as  to  the  white  and  the  dark  races,  and 
his  personal  character  made  him  nobler  than  they. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  outward  fabric  of  imperial  order  and 
law  was  being  painfully  founded  and  slowly  built  up  by 
the  Company's  servants  all  through  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  good  seed  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  free  from  tares, 
and  destined  to  grow  into  the  great  harvest  of  the  con- 
version of  India,  was  silently  sown  under  Danish  protection 
from  Tranquebar  on  the  Madras  coast,  and  afterwards 
from  Serampore  in  the  Gangetic  valley.  On  9th  July 
1706,  after  the  territory  had  been  in  the  possession  of  the 
Danish  East  India  Company  for  eighty-five  years,  the 
Pietists  Ziegenbalg  and  Pliitschau  landed  in  India.  They 
at  first  found  the  Danish  officials  as  hostile  to  evangelical 
religion  as  the  British  and  the  Lutherans  continued  to  be. 
On  "  Lord's  day,  October  13th,  1799,"  Marshman  and  Ward, 
soon  after  joined  by  William  Carey,  landed  at  Danish  Seram- 
pore. All  through  that  century  "  the  coast  mission,"  as  it 
was  called,  in  South  India  had  made  Christ  known  in  His 
fulness  alike  by  the  Tamil  Bible,  the  Christian  school, 
incessant  preaching  in  the  towns  and  villages,  and  public 
services  amid  English,  French,  and  native  wars,  till  the 
name  of  Schwartz  the  missionary,  who  died  in  1798, 
was  the  most  honoured  in  the  East.     Ward,  editor  and 


96  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

printer,  when  Carey  took  up  the  mantle  of  Schwartz, 
declared  God's  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  printed,  preached 
and  taught  so  as  to  work  a  supernatural  change  in  the 
faith  and  life  of  each  honest  receiver  under  the  influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  to  be  the  only  eff'ectual  means  of  the 
conversion  of  India.  "  With  a  Bible  and  a  press,"  were  his 
first  words,  "  posterity  will  see  that  a  missionary  will  not 
labour  in  vain  even  in  India."  Hannah  Marshman  for  the 
first  time  began  to  make  the  revelation  known  to  its 
women.  There  remained  to  be  supplied  only  the  other 
missionary  method,  that  of  healing,  to  realise  amid  the 
dumb  millions  of  the  peoples  of  India  the  fulness  of  the 
love  and  the  purity  of  the  teaching  and  the  example  of  the 
Son  of  Man. 

Twice  in  the  East  India  Company's  history  had  the  skil- 
ful services  of  its  surgeons,  Boughton  and  Hamilton,  to  the 
Mohammedan  emperors  or  their  families,  secured  additions 
to  the  British  territory  and  influence.  Now  there  appeared 
the  first  medical  missionary.  We  read  in  the  Indian 
Gazette  of  1st  November  1783,  an  advertisement  for  a 
Christian.  The  advertiser  was  John  Thomas,  surgeon  on 
board  of  the  "Earl  of  Oxford"  East  Indian,  who  after- 
wards induced  Carey  to  accompany  him  to  Bengal,  and 
died  at  Serampore.  Good  John  Newton  saw  that  adver- 
tisement in  England,  and  accepted  it  as  a  j^roof  that  there 
were  religious  stirrings  in  the  country.  There  were  two 
answers,  one  from  the  chaplain  of  the  day,  the  Eev.  W. 
Johnson,  who  soon  after  left  India  with  .£35,000.  He 
had  so  preached  that  Thomas  said,  "  the  sermon  as  well  as 
the  text  was  '  The  Unknown  God,' "  and  did  not  reply  to 
him.  The  second  response  advised  the  opening  of  a 
subscription  for  a  translation  of  the  New  Testament  into 
Persian  and  the  vernacular.  There  were,  however,  at 
least  three  godly  men  among  the  officials  of  that  day, 
Charles  Grant,  George  Udny,  who  succeeded  him  as  Com- 
pany's agent  at  Malda  where  he  gave  Carey  an  asylum, 
and  William  Chambers,  J\Iaster  in  Chancery  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  Avho  used  to  call  the  English  Calcutta  and  the 
Dutch  Batavia,  Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 


THE   EAST    INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  97 

Charles  Grant  was  born  in  1746,  and  went  out  to 
Bengal,  first  as  a  merchant,  and  then  as  a  civil  servant. 
When  living  in  Calcutta  as  we  have  already  described  it, 
and  about  thirty  years  of  age,  he  says,  "  I  was  brought 
under  deep  concern  about  the  state  of  my  soul.  There 
was  no  person  then  living  there  from  whom  I  could  obtain 
any  information  as  to  the  way  of  a  sinner's  salvation." 
He  went  to  Kiernander,  a  missionary  whom  Clive  had 
invited  from  Cuddalor  to  Calcutta.  "  I  found  him  lying 
on  a  couch.  My  anxious  inquiries  as  to  what  I  should  do 
to  be  saved  appeared  to  embarrass  and  confuse  him  exceed- 
ingly ;  and  when  I  left  him,  the  perspiration  was  running 
from  his  face  in  consequence,  as  it  appeared  to  me,  of  his 
mental  distress.  He  could  not  answer  my  questions,  but 
he  gave  me  some  good  instructive  books."  Grant  had 
suffered  domestic  affliction,  being  one  of  the  few  civilians 
who  had  brought  out  with  him  his  wife,  her  mother,  and 
sister.  Mr.  William  Chambers,  vrho  had  been  influenced 
by  the  great  Schwartz,  married  the  sister,  and  a  Mr. 
O'Beck,  a  pupil  of  Schwartz,  became  Mr.  Grant's  steward. 
Not  only  Mr.  Udny's  mother,  but  the  mother  of  Sir 
Eobert  and  William  Chambers,  joined  them  in  India  at 
this  time.  A  Christian  society  was  thus  formed,  and 
Christian  family  life  was  thus  exhibited,  probably  for  the 
first  time  in  India,  with  the  happiest  results.  The  Seram- 
pore  missionaries  found  a  home  and  congenial  spirits  ready 
for  them.  The  Eev.  David  Brown  too,  of  Magdalen  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  was  sent  out  to  superintend  the  Military 
Orphan  Society's  Schools,  and  he  became  an  evangelical 
chaplain.  Even  before  Thomas  had  laid  hold  of  Carey, 
Mr.  Grant  had  projected  a  mission  of  gospel  ministers 
from  England  to  India,  and  Brown  had  named  eight 
students  at  home  as  fit  persons.  Before  the  immortal 
three  of  Serampore  had  landed  in  the  country,  Mr. 
Chambers,  being  officially  Persian  interpreter,  had  begun 
a  translation  of  the  Scriptures.  Mr.  Grant  was  himself 
to  support  two  of  the  eight  missionaries  on  ,£240  a-year 
each,  with  books  and  teachers  besides.  Simeon  of  Cam- 
bridge was  formally  asked  to  become  their  agent,  and  it 

11 


98  THE  CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

seemed  as  if  the  Church  of  England  would  be  the  first  to 
do  its  duty.  The  application  bore  good  fruit,  though  at 
a  later  time,  in  the  birth  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
and  the  arrival  of  such  chaplains  as  Martyn  and  Corrie. 
Meanwhile  Carey  was  on  his  way  to  Danish  protection 
at  Serampore,  where  the  two  sets  of  ardent  evangelical 
men  met  often  in  after  days  for  prayer  and  loving  confer- 
ence, now  in  the  deserted  pagoda  which  still  bears  Martyn's 
name,  and  now  in  Brown's  cool  retreat  of  Aldeen,  between 
that  and  the  Serampore  mission-house. 

While  thus  working  through  Simeon  at  home,  Charles 
Grant,  now  a  member  of  his  Council,  approached  Lord 
Cornwallis  on  the  subject.  That  Governor-General  had 
introduced  into  English  society  a  reign  of  apparent  morality 
at  least.  Would  he  support  a  mission  to  the  natives  1 
All  that  could  be  got  from  him  was  the  assurance  that  he 
would  not  oppose  it.  He  had  no  belief  in  the  conversion 
of  the  people  of  India,  they  were  too  bad  for  that !  But 
his  neutrality,  which  in  some  of  his  successors,  down  even 
to  Lord  Canning's  days  after  the  Mutiny,  became  cold  and 
occasionally  active  opposition,  encouraged  Grant  to  send 
for  the  two  missionaries  whom  he  was  ready  to  support. 
They  were  to  study  the  languages  and  literature  of 
the  natives  for  three  years  at  Benares,  "after  which 
they  may  begin  their  glorious  work  of  giving  light  to  the 
heathens  with  every  probability  of  success."  Significant 
words,  well  applied  in  Carey's  case  at  Serampore,  and  in 
Duffs  in  another  direction  at  Calcutta,  and  afterwards 
carried  out  at  Benares  itself  by  the  Church  missionaries, 
in  a  college  endowed  by  Jeynarain,  a  Hindu  who  died 
almost  a  Christian.  Grant  soon  after  went  home  to  one 
of  the  "  Chairs  "  of  the  East  India  Company's  Directors, 
and  in  due  time  became  chairman.  There,  and  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  where  he  long  represented  the  county 
of  Inverness,  ho  did  more  for  the  Christianising  of  India 
than  any  other  man  of  his  day.  In  India  he  saw  Carey 
begin  his  work,  in  England  he  became  not  the  least  of 
the  cultured  "Clapham  Sect,"  whose  good  deeds  find  a 
biographer  in  Sir  James  Stephen.     No  man  ever  wielded 


THE   EAST   INDIA  COMPANY'S   WORK  99 

such  influence,  or  used  it  for  liighe-r  ends,  alike  by  his 
despatches  from  Leadenhall  Street,  his  private  correspond- 
ence with  successive  Governors-General  and  members  of 
Council,  his  speeches  in  Parliament,  and  his  action  as  an 
evangelical  leader  of  the  Church  of  England.^  His  eldest 
son  became  principal  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonial 
Department,  and  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron 
Glenelg  in  1836.  His  second  son,  Sir  Eobert,  became 
Governor  of  Bombay,  the  friend  of  the  Scottish  missionary, 
Dr.  John  AVilson,  and  left  a  memory  dear  to  the  Church 
for  the  hymns  of  his  which  it  sings. 

Greater  than  all  Charles  Grant's  efforts  for  the  good  of 
the  people  of  India,  or  any  other  Christian  statesman's, 
we  reckon  his  Observations  on  the  State  of  Society  among  the 
Asiatic  Subjects  of  Gh'eat  Britain,  addressed  in  1797,  when 
he  was  fresh  from  a  thirty  years'  study  of  the  people,  to 
his  brother  Directors,  and  on  "  a  subject  pressed  by  repeated 
proposals  on  your  attention,  namely,  the  communication 
of  Christianity  to.  the  natives  of  our  possessions  in  the 
East."  What  he  modestly  called  a  tract  was  kept  back 
by  his  colleagues,  till  Mr.  Dundas  laid  it  before  the  House 
of  Commons  during  the  critical  charter  discussions  of 
1813.  There  it  found  men  like  Wilberforce  prepared  to 
compel  the  House  to  adopt  it  by  the  intrinsic  fairness  of 
its  principles,  as  well  as  by  the  eloquence  of  the  orator, 
a"nd  so  it  has  become  the  real  charter  of  liberty  and  light 
to  the  East.  ■  The  otherwise  majestic  Company  that  blindly 
resisted  its  appeals  has  passed  away,  the  victim  of  its  own 
shortsightedness,  while  Charles  Grant's  counsels  have  pre- 
vailed to  build  up  an  empire  stronger  than  that  which  the 
Mutiny  purged  of  its  clay.  In  this  light  how  significant 
these  words  of  the  preface  of  1797  : — 

"In  earlier  periods  the  Company  manifested  a  laudable  zeal  for 
extending  as  far  as  its  means  then  went  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel 

^  His  papers  have  yet  to  see  the  light.  The  MSS.  we  have  seen  are 
rich  in  their  value  ;  without  them  the  history  of  India  and  of  missions 
cannot  be  adequately  \vritten.  See  the  fullest  account  of  him  published, 
with  a  portrait,  in  Good  Words  for  September  1891. 


loo  THE   CONVERSION   OP   INDIA 

to  the  pagan  tribes  among  whom  its  factories  were  placed.  It  has 
since  prospered  to  become  great  in  a  way  to  which  the  commercial 
history  of  the  world  affords  no  parallel ;  and  for  this  it  is  indebted  to 
the  fostering  and  protecting  care  of  divii^e  Providence.  It  owes  there- 
fore the  warmest  gi-atitude  for  the  past,  and  it  equally  needs  the 
support  of  the  same  beneficent  Power  in  time  to  come,  for  the  '  chances 
and  changes '  to  which  human  affairs  are  always  liable,  and  especially 
the  emphatic  lessons  of  vicissitude  which  the  present  day  has  supplied, 
may  assure  us  that  neither  elevation  nor  safety  can  be  maintained  by 
any  of  the  nations  or  rulers  of  the  earth,  but  through  Him  who  governs 
the  whole.  The  duty  therefore  of  the  Company,  as  part  of  a  Christian 
community,  its  peculiar  superadded  obligations,  its  enlarged  means, 
and  its  continual  dependence  on  the  divine  favour,  all  call  upon  it  to 
honour  God  by  diffusing  the  knowledge  of  that  revelation  which  He 
has  vouchsafed  to  mankind." 

At  the  time  Charles  Grant  was  writing  his  folio  of  116 
pages,  the  aged  Schwartz  addressed  these  words  to  the 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge,  as  quoted 
on  the  last  page  : — 

"  I  am  now  at  the  brink  of  eternity,  but  to  this  moment  I  declare 
that  I  do  not  repent  of  having  spent  forty-three  years  in  the  service  of 
my  divine  Master.  Who  knows  but  God  may  remove  some  of  the 
great  obstacles  to  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  ?  Should  a  reforma- 
tion take  place  amongst  the  Europeans,  it  would  no  doubt  be  the 
greatest  blessing  to  the  country. " 

Mr.  Grant  treats  his  great  theme  in  five  chapters.  The 
first  reviews  the  British  territorial  administration  in  the 
East,  from  Plassey  to  the  Cornwallis  reforms  in  1786,  in 
twenty  of  the  wisest  pages  ever  written  by  an  Indian 
ruler.  In  this  occurs  the  famous  description  of  the  great 
famine  of  1769-70.  The  second  describes  the  state  of 
society  among  the  Hindu  subjects  of  Great  Britain, 
particularly  with  respect  to  morals.  The  third  traces  the 
causes  which  have  produced  that  state.  And  the  fourth, 
most  important  of  all  in  its  far-reaching  and  beneficial 
consequences,  inquires  into  the  measures  which  might  be 
adopted  by  Great  Britain  for  the  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  her  Asiatic  subjects,  and  answers  objections. 
How  much  is  implied  and  anticipated  in  the  following 
passage,  "written  chiefly  in  the  year  1792,"  on  the  re- 


THE  EAST   INDIA   COMrANV's   WORK  101 

moval  of  the  ignorance  and  consequent  error  of  the  Hindus 
by  the  English  language  ! — 

"  It  is  perfectly  in  the  power  of  this  country,  by  degrees,  to  impart 
to  the  Hindus  our  language  :  afterwards  through  tliat  medium,  to 
make  them  acquainted  with  our  easy  literary  compositions,  upon  a 
variety  of  subjects  ;  and,  let  not  the  idea  hastily  excite  derision, 
2)rogressively  with  the  simple  elements  of  our  arts,  our  philosophy,  and 
religion.  These  acquisitions  would  silently  undermine,  and  at  length 
subvert,  the  fabric  of  error ;  and  all  the  objections  that  may  l^e 
apprehended  against  such  a  change,  are,  it  is  confidently  believed, 
capable  of  a  solid  answer. 

"  The  first  communication,  and  the  instrument  of  introducing  the 
rest,  must  be  the  English  language  ;  this  is  a  key  which  will  open  to 
them  a  world  of  new  ideas,  and  policy  alone  might  have  impelled  us, 
long  since,  to  put  it  into  their  hands.  To  introduce  the  language  of 
the  conquerors  seems  to  be  an  obvious  mean  of  assimilating  the 
conquered  people  to  them.  The  Mohammedans,  from  the  beginning 
of  their  power,  employed  the  Persian  language  in  the  affairs  of  govern- 
ment, and  in  the  public  departments.  This  practice  aided  them  in 
maintaining  their  superiority,  and  enabled  them,  instead  of  depending 
blindly  on  native  agents,  to  look  into  the  conduct  and  details  of 
public  business,  as  well  as  to  keep  intelligible  registers  of  the  income 
and  expenditure  of  the  State.  Natives  readily  learnt  the  language  of 
government,  finding  that  it  was  necessary  in  every  concern  of  revenue 
and  of  justice  ;  they  next  became  teachers  of  it ;  and  in  all  the  pro- 
vinces over  which  the  Mogul  Empire  extended,  it  is  still  understood, 
and  taught  by  numbers  of  Hindus.  It  would  have  been  our  interest 
to  have  followed  their  example  ;  and  had  we  done  so  on  the  assumption 
of  the  Dewannee,^  or  some  years  afterwards,  the  English  language 
would  now  have  been  spoken  and  studied  by  multitudes  of  Hindus 
throughout  our  provinces.  The  details  of  the  revenue  would,  from 
the  beginning,  have  been  open  to  our  inspection  ;  and  by  facility  of 
examination  on  our  part,  and  difficulty  of  fabrication  on  that  of  the 
natives,  manifold  impositions  of  a  gross  nature,  which  have  been 
practised  upon  us,  would  have  been  precluded.  An  easy  channel  of 
communication  also  would  always  have  been  open  between  the  rulers 

1  The  revenue  and  civil  administration  personally  granted  to  Clive, 

as  representative  of  the  East  India  Company,  by  the  Emperor  of  Delhi 
on  the  12tli  of  August  1765.  That  "memorable  day  in  the  political 
and  constitutional  history  of  British  India,"  is  described  by  Marshman, 
at  p.  310  of  vol.  1.  of  his  History  of  India,  which  is  still  the  best. 


102  THE   CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

and  the  subjects  ;  and  numberless  grievances  would  have  been  repre- 
sented, redressed,  or  prevented,  which  the  ignorance  of  the  former  in 
the  country  languages,  and  the  hindrances  experienced  by  the  latter 
in  making  their  approaches,  have  sometimes  suffered  to  pass  with 
impunity,  to  the  encouragement  of  new  abuses.  We  were  long  held 
in  the  dark,  both  in  India  and  in  Europe,  by  the  use  of  a  technical 
revenue  language  ;  and  a  man  of  considerable  judgment,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  Beugal  administration  uear  twenty  years  since,  publicly 
animadverted  on  the  absurdity  of  our  submitting  to  employ  the 
unknown  jargon  of  a  conquered  people.  It  is  certain  that  the 
Hindus  would  easily  have  conformed  to  the  use  of  English  ;  and  they 
would  still  be  glad  to  possess  the  language  of  their  masters,  the 
language  which  always  gives  weight  and  consequence  to  the  natives 
who  have  any  acquaintance  with  it,  and  which  would  enable  every 
native  to  make  his  own  representations  directly  to  the  Governor- 
General  himself,  who,  it  may  be  presumed,  will  not  commonly, 
henceforth,  be  chosen  from  the  line  of  the  Company's  servants,  and 
therefore  may  not  speak  the  dialects  of  the  country.  Of  what  import- 
ance it  might  be  to  the  public  interest  that  a  man  in  that  station 
should  not  be  obliged  to  depend  on  a  medium  with  which  he  is 
unacquainted,  may  readily  be  conceived. 

"It  would  be  extremely  easy  for  Government  to  establish,  at  a 
moderate  expense,  in  various  parts  of  the  provinces,  places  of 
gratuitous  instruction  in  reading  and  writing  English  ;  multitudes, 
especially  of  the  young,  would  flock  to  them  ;  and  the  easy  books 
used  in  teaching,  might  at  the  same  time  convey  obvious  truths  on 
different  subjects.  The  teachers  should  be  persons  of  knowledge, 
morals,  and  discretion  ;  and  men  of  this  character  could  impart  to 
their  pupils  much  useful  information  in  discourse ;  and  to  facilitate 
the  attainment  of  that  object,  they  might  at  first  make  some  use  of 
the  Bengalese  tongue.  The  Hindus  would,  in  time,  become  teachers 
of  English  themselves  ;  and  the  employment  of  our  language  in 
public  business,  for  which  every  political  reason  remains  in  full 
force,  would,  in  the  course  of  another  generation,  make  it  very 
general  throughout  the  country.  There  is  nothing  wanting  to  the 
success  of  this  plan,  but  the  hearty  patronage  of  Government.  If 
they  wish  it  to  succeed,  it  can  and  must  succeed.  The  introduction  of 
English  in  the  administration  of  the  revenue,  in  judicial  proceed- 
ings, and  in  other  business  of  government,  wherein  Persian  is  now 
used,  and  the  establishment  of  free  schools  for  instruction  in  this 
language,  would  insure  its  diffusion  over  the  country,  for  the  reason 
already  suggested,  that  the  interest  of  the  natives  would  induce  them 
to  acquire  it.  ,  .  . 


THE   EAST   INDIA   COMi'ANY*S   WORK:  l03 

"With  our  language  much  of  our  useful  literature  might,  and 
would,  in  time  be  communicated.  The  art  of  printing  would  enable 
us  to  disseminate  our  writings  in  a  way  the  Persians  never  could  have 
done,  though  their  compositions  had  been  as  numerous  as  ours. 
Hence  the  Hindus  would  see  the  great  use  we  make  of  reason  on  all 
subjects,  and  in  all  affairs  ;  they  also  would  learn  to  reason,  they 
would  become  acquainted  with  the  history  of  their  own  species,  the 
past  and  present  state  of  the  world  ;  tlieir  affections  would  gradually 
become  interested  by  various  engaging  works,  composed  to  recommend 
virtue  and  to  deter  from  vice  ;  the  general  mass  of  their  opinions 
would  be  rectified  ;  and  above  all,  they  would  see  a  better  system  of 
principles  and  morals.  New  views  of  duty  as  rational  creatures  would 
open  upon  them  ;  and  that  mental  bondage  in  which  they  have  long 
been  holden  would  gradually  dissolve. 

"To  this  change  the  true  knowledge  of  nature  would  contribute  ; 
and  some  of  our  easy  explanations  of  natural  philosophy  might 
undoubtedly,  by  proper  means,  be  made  intelligible  to  them.  Except 
a  few  Brahman^  who  consider  the  concealment  of  their  learning  as 
part  of  their  religion,  the  people  are  totally  misled  as  to  the  system 
and  phenomena  of  nature  ;  and  their  errors  in  this  branch  of  science, 
upon  which  divers  important  conclusions  rest,  may  be  more  easily 
demonstrated  to  them  than  the  absurdity  and  falsehood  of  their 
mythological  legends.  From  the  demonstration  of  the  true  cause  of 
eclipses,  the  story  of  Ragoo  and  Ketoo,  the  dragons  who,  when  the  sun 
and  the  moon  are  obscured,  are  supposed  to  be  assaulting  them, — a  story 
which  has  hitherto  been  an  article  of  religious  faith,  productive  of 
religious  services  among  the  Hindus, — would  fall  to  the  ground  ;  the 
removal  of  one  pillar  would  weaken  the  fabric  of  falsehood  ;  the  dis- 
covery of  one  palpable  error  would  open  the  mind  to  farther  con- 
viction ;  and  the  progressive  discovery  of  truths,  hitherto  unknown, 
would  dissipate  as  many  superstitious  chimeras,  the  parents  of  false 
fears  and  false  hopes.  Every  branch  of  natural  philosophy  might  in 
time  be  introduced  and  diffused  among  the  Hindus.  Their  under- 
standings would  thence  be  strengthened,  as  well  as  their  minds 
informed,  and  error  be  dispelled  in  proportion. 

"But  perhaps  no  acquisition  in  natural  philosophy  would  so 
effectually  enlighten  the  mass  of  the  people  as  the  introduction  of  the 
principles  of  mechanics,  and  their  application  to  agriculture  and  the 
useful  arts.  .  .  .  The  scope  for  improvement  in  this  respect  is  pro- 
digious. What  great  accessions  of  wealth  would  Bengal  derive  from  a 
people  intelligent  in  the  principles  of  agriculture,  skilled  to  make  the 
most  of  soils  and  seasons,  to  improve  the  existing  modes  of  culture,  of 
pasturage,  of  rearing  cattle,  of  defence  against  excesses  of  drought 


104  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

and  of  rain,  and  thus  to  meliorate  the  quality  of  all  the  produce  of 
the  country  !  All  these  arts  are  still  in  infancy.  The  husbandman  of 
Bengal  just  turns  up  the  soil  with  a  diminutive  plough,  ^rawn  by  a 
couple  of  miserable  cattle  ;  and  if  drought  parches,  or  the  rain  inun- 
date the  crop,  he  has  no  resource  ;  he  thinks  he  is  destined  to  this 
suffering,  and  is  far  more  likely  to  die  from  want  than  to  relieve 
himself  by  any  new  or  extraordinary  effort.  Horticulture  is  also  in 
its  first  stage :  the  various  fruits  and  esculent  herbs,  with  which 
Hindustan  abounds,  are  nearly  in  a  state  of  nature  ;  though  they  are 
planted  in  enclosed  gardens,  little  skill  is  employed  to  reclaim  them. 
In  this  respect,  likewise,  we  might  communicate  information  ot 
material  use  to  the  comfort  of  life  and  to  the  prevention  of  famine. 
In  silk,  indigo,  sugar,  and  in  many  other  articles,  what  vast  improve- 
ments might  be  effected  by  the  introduction  of  machinery  !  The 
skilful  application  of  fire,  of  water,  and  of  steam,  improvements  which 
would  thus  immediately  concern  the  interests  of  the  common  people, 
would  awaken  them  from  their  torpor,  and  give  activity  to  their 
minds. 

"But  undoubtedly  the  most  important  communication  which  the 
Hindus  could  receive  through  the  medium  of  our  language,  would  be 
the  knowledge  of  our  religion,  the  principles  of  which  are  explained 
in  a  clear,  easy  way,  in  various  tracts  circulating  among  us,  and 
are  completely  contained  in  the  inestimable  volume  of  Scripture. 
Thence  they  would  be  instructed  in  the  nature  and  perfections  of  the 
one  true  God,  and  in  the  real  history  of  man  ;  his  creation,  lapsed 
state,  and  the  means  of  his  recovery,  on  all  which  points  they  hold 
false  and  extravagant  opinions  ;  they  would  see  a  pure,  complete,  and 
perfect  system  of  morals  and  of  duty,  enforced  by  the  most  awful 
sanctions,  and  recommended  by  the  most  interesting  motives  ;  they 
would  learn  the  accountableness  of  man,  the  final  judgment  he  is  to 
undergo,  and  the  eternal  state  "which  is  to  follow.  Wherever  this 
knowledge  should  be  received,  idolatry,  with  all  the  rabble  of  its 
impure  deities,  its  monsters  of  wood  and  stone,  its  false  principles 
and  corrupt  practices,  its  delusive  hopes  and  vain  fears,  its  ridiculous 
ceremonies  and  degrading  superstitions,  its  lying  legends  and  fraudu- 
lent impositions,  would  fall.  The  reasonable  service  of  the  only  and 
the  infinitely  perfect  God  would  be  established  ;  love  to  Him,  peace 
and  good-will  towards  men,  would  be  felt  as  obligatory  principles. 

*'  It  is  not  asserted  that  such  effects  would  be  immediate  or 
universal ;  but  admitting  them  to  be  progressive,  and  partial  only, 
yet  how  great  would  the  change  be,  and  how  happy  at  length  for  the 
outward  prosperity  and  internal  peace  of  society  an)ong  the  Hindus  ! 
Men  would  be  restored  to  the  use  of  their  reason  ;  all  the  advantages 


THE   EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  105 

of  happy  soil,  climate,  and  situation  would  be  observed  and  improved  ; 
the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life  would  be  increased  ;  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  mind  and  rational  intercourse  valued  ;  the  people  would 
rise  in  the  scale  of  human  beings,  and  as  they  found  their  character, 
their  state,  and  theii-  comforts  improved,  they  would  prize  more 
liighly  the  security  and  the  happiness  of  a  well-ordered  society. 
Such  a  change  would  correct  those  sad  disorders  which  have  been 
described,  and  for  which  no  other  remedy  has  been  proposed,  nor  is 
in  the  nature  of  things  to  be  found." 

"  Prediction  "  is  the  word  we  might  apply  to  such  far- 
seeing  wisdom  and  benevolence  directed  to  the  twofold 
work  of  converting  India — the  creation  of  a  Christian 
Church  and  of  self-governing  Christian  nations. 

This  was  written  in  the  prospect  of  the  debates  in 
Parliament  on  a  new  charter  for  the  East  India  Company. 
The  philanthropists  and  evangelicals  of  Clapham  were  led 
by  Grant  to  work  for  the  Christianisation  of  India,  from 
this  time  forward,  as  heartily  as  for  the  emancipation  of 
the  slave.  Wilberforce  was  the  moving  spirit  in  Parliament, 
and  he  gained  over  to  the  cause,  from  the  secular  point 
of  view,  his  friends  Pitt  and  Dundas.  Hannah  More,  Scott, 
Cecil,  and  afterwards  Charles  Simeon,  worked,  in  their 
own  way,  towards  the  same  end.  The  boy  Macaulay  was 
nursed  amid  conversations  and  debates  on  India  missions 
and  education,  which  he  himself  was  to  bring  to  a  con- 
summation after  1833.  AYilberforce  carried  the  first  point 
through  Parliament  in  1793,  with  results  thus  described 
in  his  journal  of  that  year  : — 

"May  16th. — East  India  Kesolutions  in  hand  and  slave  business. 
Lord  Carhampton  abusing  me  as  a  madman.  17;!^.— Through  God's 
help  got  the  East  India  Resolutions  in  quietly.  Sunday  I9th. — Scott 
morning  ;  Cecil  afternoon.  Called  at  Grant's — Miss  More  there.  The 
hand  of  Providence  was  never  more  visible  than  in  this  East  India 
affair.     What  cause  have  I  for  gratitude,  and  trust,  and  humiliation  ! "' 

The  Resolution,  as  it  finally  passed,  was  to  the  effect — 

**  That  it  is  the  peculiar  and  bounden  duty  of  the  British  Legisla- 
ture to  promote,  by  all  just  and  prudent  means,  the  interest  and 
happiness  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  dominions  in  India ;  and 


106  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

that  for  these  ends  such  measures  ought  to  be  adopted  as  may 
gradually  tend  to  their  advancement  in  useful  knowledge,  and  to 
their  religious  and  moral  improvement " 

Alas  !  the  Resolution  stood  there  on  the  records  of  the 
House  of  Commons  as  a  declaration  of  the  national  duty, 
but  the  India  House  raised  such  an  alarm  at  the  prospect 
of  the  deluge  of  missionaries  and  schoolmasters  which  was 
to  sweep  away  the  Company's  rule  in  the  East,  that  even 
Pitt  and  Dundas  had  to  forgo  their  pledge  to  Wilberforce. 
"My  clauses  thrown  out,"  he  writes,"  Dundas  most  false  and 
double ;  but,  poor  fellow,  much  to  be  pitied."  India,  he 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "  is  left  in  the  undisturbed  and  peace- 
able possession  and  committed  to  the  providential  pro- 
tection of  Brahma."  His  last  appeal  has  a  curious  interest 
in  the  present  day.  He  declared  that  the  rejection  of  his 
Resolutions  would  be 

"to  declare  to  the  world  that  we  are  friends  to  Christianity,  not 
because  it  is  a  revelation  from  Heaven,  not  even  because  it  is  con- 
ducive to  the  happiness  of  man,  but  only  because  it  is  the  established 
relif^ion  of  this  country.  .  .  .  Beware  how  this  opinion  goes  abroad. 
Think  not  that  the  people  of  this  laud  will  long  maintain  a  great 
Church  establishment  from  motives  of  mere  political  expediency." 

Spoken  a  century  ago  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  are  these  words  another  prophecy  1  By  refus- 
ing to  insert  a  clause  so  vague  and  moral  in  the  charter  of 
1793,  the  Government  and  Parliament,  at  the  dictation  of 
the  East  India  Company,  went  back  from  the  far  more  pro- 
nounced and  Christian  clause,  which  makes  the  charter  of 
1698  for  ever  memorable. 

When  1813,  the  time  for  a  renewal  of  the  charter, 
came  round,  Charles  Grant  had  more  power,  Wilberforce 
more  influence,  and  the  country  more  wisdom.  The  pro- 
gress was  due  also  to  another  Scotsman,  of  whom  his 
country  has  reason  to  be  proud.  When  Whitefield 
preached  at  Cumbuslang,  one  Alexander  Buchanan  was 
parish  schoolmaster  there,  and  he  married  the  daughter  of 
Claudius  Somers,  who  was  an  elder  of  the  kirk.     The  new 


THE   EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  107 

life  which  they  found  in  the  excitement  of  the  revival 
showed  itself  in  the  son,  Claudius  Buchanan.  Tutor  at 
Dunstaffnage,  and  student  of  Glasgow  University,  he  was 
early  destined  for  the  Scottish  ministry,  but  determined 
first  to  see  the  world,  avowedly  like  Goldsmith.  After 
strange  adventures  and  stranger  experience  of  heart,  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  a  man  of  similar  antecedents, 
John  Newton,  of  Olney.  Mr.  Henry  Thornton,  first  of 
the  Clapham  men,  sent  him  to  Cambridge,  where  Isaac 
Milner  completed  Newton's  good  work.  In  1796  Claudius 
Buchanan  went  out  to  Calcutta  as  a  chaplain  to  the 
Honourable  Company,  for  godly  directors  like  Grant 
looked  out  for  evangelical  chaplains  like  Brown  and 
Buchanan,  Marty n,  Corrie,  and  Thomason.  Lord  Welles- 
ley,  following  the  good  example  of  his  predecessors  Lords 
Teignmouth  and  Cornwallis,  encouraged  church-going,  and 
had  made  it  more  attractive  by  "  punkahs  "  and  "  tatties," 
the  cooling  apparatus  in  the  hot  season.  His  Excellency 
had  also  added  a  chapel  to  uhat  famous  college  of  Fort- 
William  which  he  created  for  the  civilian  students.  So 
many  as  fifty  octavo  Bibles  were  sold  in  three  months  in 
Calcutta,  wrote  Buchanan  in  1805.  All  Christian  sects 
of  east  and  west  were  represented  at  the  services ;  but 
he  says,  "a  name  or  sect  is  never  mentioned  from  the 
pulpit,  and  thus  the  word  preached  becomes  profitable 
to  all." 

The  time  had  come,  he  thought,  for  a  regular  episcopal 
establishment  of  the  Church  in  India,  and  in  that  year  he 
published  his  Memorial  on  the  subject.  The  persistent 
representations  of  good  men  of  all  sects  on  behalf  of  what 
had  been  called  the  "pious  clauses,"  rejected  from  the 
charter  of  1793,  led  to  inquiry  by  a  parliamentary  com- 
mittee. Very  valuable,  for  historical  and  biographical 
reasons,  is  the  evidence  given  before  that  committee. 
When  Warren  Hastings,  in  his  eightieth  year,  entered  the 
House,  the  body  which  had  once  impeached  him  rose  and 
uncovered  as  before  majesty.  The  old  man  represented, 
but  in  a  vastly  modified  form,  the  conservative  fears  of 
the  Company  of   his  early  days.      His  successor   twice 


108  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

removed,  Lord  Teignmouth,  with  more  force  spoke  the 
opinions  of  a  wiser  and  later  time.  Great  military  states- 
men, like  Sir  Thomas  Munro  and  Sir  John  Malcolm,  found 
their  political  expediency  confronted  by  the  bolder  prin- 
ciples of  the  retired  Lord  Wellesley,  fortunately  Wilber- 
force's  friend,  as  he  had  been  Carey's.  It  fell  to  Lord 
Castlereagh,  of  all  men,  to  apologise  for  making  the  "  pious 
clauses  "  law.  On  the  ground,  "  that  while  British  subjects 
in  India  were  governed  by  British  laws,  they  should  be  per- 
mitted to  exercise  their  national  religion,"  he  said  the 
ecclesiastical  establishment  would  "only  amount  to  one 
bishop  and  three  archdeacons  to  superintend  the  chaplains 
of  the  different  settlements."  The  bishop  and  three  arch- 
deacons passed  after  a  long  conversation,  and  without  a 
division,  but  not  so  the  missionary  clause.  On  the  22nd 
June,  AVilberforce's  most  elaborate  address  carried  it  by  a 
majority  of  53  in  a  House  of  125.  On  the  1st  July,  a 
Madras  barrister  of  scoffing  ability,  Mr.  Charles  Marsh, 
reduced  the  majority  to  22  in  a  House  of  86.  At  last, 
however,  the  good  cause  triumphed  on  the  1st  July,  when, 
in  a  House  of  only  72,  a  majority  of  24  carried  that  which 
twenty  years  before,  Parliament  had  allowed  the  East  India 
Company  to  neutralise  when  Wilberforce  brought  it  for- 
ward. Even  his  renewed  Resolution  would  probably  have 
proved  a  dead  letter  for  many  a  year,  had  not  provision 
been  made  in  the  charter  to  compel  the  Company  to  grant 
the  funds  wherewith  to  carry  out  the  educational  portion 
of  it.  The  retired  Advocate -General  of  Calcutta,  Mr. 
Robert  Percy  Smith,  who  was  almost  as  witty  as  his  better- 
known  brother  Sydney,  procured  the  insertion  of  this 
addition,  that  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  Governor-General 
in  Council  to  direct  that  "A  sum  of  not  less  than  one 
lakh  of  rupees  (then  above  £10,000)  in  each  year  shall  be 
set  apart  and  applied  to  the  revival  and  improvement  of 
literature  and  the  encouragement  of  the  learned  natives  of 
India,  and  for  the  introduction  and  promotion  of  a  know- 
ledge of  the  sciences  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
territories  of  India." 

The  charter  of  1813  was  thus  the  foundation,  not  only 


THE   EAST   INDIA   COMPANY'S   WORK  100 

of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment,^  but,  what  is  of  far  more 
importance  for  the  civilisation  and  the  Christianisation  of 
its  people,  of  the  educational  system  of  India,  and  all  that 
that  system  as  subsequently  developed  by  Dr.  Dufif  in- 
volves. The  two  will  be  seen  to  work  themselves  out  in 
l)arallel  lines  in  the  Anglicising  of  native  education  in 
1835,  the  Education  Despatch  of  1854,  the  University 
Charters  of  1857,  the  despatch  on  vernacular  education 
and  school  cess  for  that  end  in  1859,  and  the  adoption  of 
the  principle  that  AVestern  truth  may  be  communicated  to 
learned  Orientals  through  their  classical  languages  as  in 
the  Punjab  University. 

As,  on  the  whole,  throughout  the  two  and  a  half 
centuries  of  its  history,  it  had  reflected  the  public  opinion 
and  morals  of  England,  the  East  India  Company's  adminis- 
tration of  India  gradually  advanced  in  toleration  and  a 
just  neutrality.  In  London  the  Court  of  Directors  was 
checked  by  the  Board  of  Control  and  stimulated  by 
Parliament.  In  India  the  successive  Governors-General, 
especially  Wellesley,  Lord  Hastings,  Bentinck,  and  the  Mar- 
C|uis  of  Dalhousie — last  and  perhaps  greatest  of  all — were 
influenced  by  such  remarkable  men  as  the  missionaries 
Carey  and  Duff  in  succession,  whose  services  they  utilised 
and  whose  educational  methods  they  copied  for  the  public 
good.  In  the  subordinate  provinces  the  same  liberalising 
process  went  on.  Madras  will  never  forget  the  influence 
of  the  Marquis  of  Tweeddale  and  the  missionary  John 
Anderson.  Bombay  will  ever  be  grateful  for  statesmen 
and  judges  like  the  two  Elphin stones.  Sir  James  Mack- 
intosh and  Bartle  Frere,  and  for  John  Wilson  and 
his  missionary  associates.  At  Agra  Thomason  and  his 
school,  notably  Sir  William  Muir,  and  his  brother  John, 
the  greatest  of  Christian  Sanskritists — par  nohile  fratrum 
— did  a  memorable  work  for  the  ignorant  millions  of 
the  North -Western  Provinces  in  their  land  assessment 
and  educational  measures.  In  the  new  province  of  the 
Punjab,  after  the  first  and  second  Sikh  wars,  there 
flourished  towards  the  close  of  the  Company's  rule  the 
1  Act  53  George  III.  c.  155. 


110  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

band  of  Christian  officials  who,  from  Delhi,  saved  the 
Empire  in  1857.  John  Lawrence,  Montgomery,  Edwardes, 
Lake,  Oust,  Inglis,  and  many  more,  carried  over  into  the  new 
period  of  the  direct  rule  of  the  Crown  the  same  everlasting 
principles  of  truth  and  justice  by  which  they  had  welded- 
warring  Sikhs  and  Mohammedans  into  a  peaceful  and 
prosperous  people,  while  Christianity  had  from  the  first 
been  allowed  the  same  fair  field. 

At  no  period  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
not  even  in  the  brilliant  century  of  legislation  from  Con- 
stantine's  edict  of  toleration  to  the  Theodosian  code,  has 
Christianity  been  the  means  of  abolishing  so  many  inhuman 
customs  and  crimes  as  were  suppressed  in  India  by  the  Com- 
pany's Eegulations  and  Acts  in  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  Christlike  work  kept  rapid  step  with 
the  progress  of  Christian  opinion  and  beneficent  reforms  in 
Great  Britain,  but  it  was  due  in  the  first  instance  to  the 
missionaries  in  India.  In  the  teeth  of  the  supporters  of 
Hinduism,  European  as  well  as  Brahmanical,  and  contrary 
to  the  custom  of  centuries,  it  ceased  to  be  lawful,  it 
became  penal,  even  in  the  name  of  religion  (1)  to  murder 
parents  by  suttee,  by  exposure  on  the  banks  of  rivers, 
or  by  burial  alive ;  (2)  to  murder  children  by  dedication 
to  the  Ganges,  to  be  devoured  by  crocodiles,  or  daughters 
by  the  Rajpoot  modes  of  infanticide;  (3)  to  ofter  up 
human  sacrifices  in  a  temple  or  to  propitiate  the  earth- 
goddess  ;  (4)  to  encourage  suicide  under  the  wheels  of 
idol  cars,  or  wells,  or  otherwise ;  (5)  to  promote  voluntary 
torment  by  hook-swinging,  thigh-piercing,  tongue-extrac- 
tion, etc.,  or  (6)  involuntary  torment  by  mutilation, 
trampling  to  death,  ordeals  and  barbarous  executions. 
Slavery  and  the  slave-trade  were  made  illegal.  Caste  was 
no  longer  supported  by  law,  nor  recognised  in  appoint- 
ments to  office.  The  long  compromise  with  idolatry 
during  the  previous  two  centuries  ceased,  so  that  the 
Government  no  more  called  its  Christian  soldiers  to  salute 
idols,  or  its  civil  officers  to  recognise  gods  in  official 
documents,  or  manage  the  affairs  of  idol  temples  and 
extort   a  revenue  from  idol  pilgrimages.      A   long   step 


THE  EAST   INDIA  COMPANY'S   WORK  111 

was  taken  by  legislative  Acts  to  protect  tlie  civil  rights  of 
converts  to  Christianity  as  to  any  other  religion,  and  to 
leave  Hindu  widows  free  to  marry. 

Eeligious  intolerance  ceased,  almost  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  Christianity,  with  the  one  temporary 
exception,  that  Christian  officials  of  the  ruling  class  were 
not,  in  their  private  character,  allowed  the  same  liberty 
to  do  their  conscientious  duty  to  Christ  which  Moham- 
medans enjoyed  and  used  in  commending  their  prophet. 
But  that  too  was  soon  conceded  in  the  spirit  of  the  royal 
proclamation  which  extinguished  the  Court  of  Directors. 
The  last  fifty  years  of  the  almost  imperial  sway  of  the 
East  India  Company,  in  trust  for  the  British  people,  mark 
a  greater  advance  towards  the  conversion  of  India  than  we 
are  yet  able  impartially  to  estimate.  When  Claudius 
Buchanan  invited  the  youth  of  the  universities,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  to  study  the  conversion  of  Asia, 
and  was  the  means  of  calling  Adoniram  Judson  to  the 
work,  the  young  Charles  Grant  of  Magdalen  College,  and 
Francis  Wrangham,  F.R.S.,  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
published  prize  poems  on  the  subject.  The  vision  in- 
dulged by  the  latter  even  the  East  India  Company  saw 
partially  realised,  before  it  ceased  to  exercise  its  high 
trust : — 

"...  Even  now  I  see  them  move, 

The  mild  evangelists  of  peace  and  love. 

Unstained  with  Afric's  blood,  they  bend  their  prows 

Where  in  his  fiery  belt  Dahomey  glows  ; 

Hoist  round  the  stormy  Cape,  then  straining  sail 

From  Yemen's  mountains  woo  the  fragrant  gale, 

And  bear,  strange  merchandise,  to  Asia's  shore 

The  gospel's  bright  imperishable  ore. 

Unsold  to  deal  its  unbought  wealth,^  their  plan ; 

Their  traffic  to  redeem  the  soul  of  man. 

To  check  their  eager  march  Tibetan  snows 

And  Caggar's  sands  their  trackless  wilds  oppose  : 

Onward  they  press  at  duty's  sacred  call, 

O'er  Deccan's  ghauts  and  China's  northern  wall ; 

^  St.  Matt.  X.  8,  ''Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give." 


112  THE   CONVERSION   OF    INDIA 

Stretcli  uncontrolled  their  Saviour's  gentle  reign, 

And  art  and  nature  bar  their  way  in  vain, 

On  mosques  where  late  the  lurid  crescent  shone 

On  pagods  reared  to  shrine  an  idol-stone — 

Seringham's  walls,  spread  many  an  acre  o'er, 

And  the  proud  domes  of  gorgeous  Ghazipore — 

Her  bannered  cross  victorious  Albion  waves 

Beneath  that  symbol  strikes,  beneath  that  symbol  saves. 

0  haste  your  tardy  coming,  days  of  gold 
Long  by  prophetic  minstrelsy  foretold  ! 
Where  yon  bright  purple  streaks  the  Orient  skies. 
Rise  Science,  Freedom,  Peace,  Religion,  rise  I 
Till  from  Tanjor  to  farthest  Samarkand 
In  one  wide  lustre  bask  the  glowing  land, 
And,  Brahma  from  his  guilty  greatness  hurled 
With  Mecca's  lord,  Messiah  rule  the  world." 


VI 

GREAT  Britain's  atteimpt 

"  Through  Him  we  both  have  access  by  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father. 
Now  therefore  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  foreigners,  but  fellow-citizens 
with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God." — Eph.  ii.  18,  19. 

On  Monday,  the  1st  day  of  November  1858,  as  the 
tropical  sun  neared  its  setting,  from  the  steps  of  Govern- 
ment House,  Calcutta,  there  was  read  to  the  fifth  of  the 
human  race,  who  from  that  hour  formed  her  direct  subjects, 
the  Proclamation  of  "  Victoria,  by  the  grace  of  God,  of  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  of  the 
Colonies  and  Dependencies  thereof  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
America,  and  Australasia,  Queen,  Defender  of  the  Faith." 
The  Act  of  Parliament  had  become  law  on  the  2nd  day 
of  August,  the  fourteenth  Earl  of  Derby  being  Prime 
Minister.  His  son  Lord  Stanley,  who  had  been  President 
of  the  Board  of  Control,  and  from  that  date  became  the 
first  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  had  at  once  drafted  a 
proclamation  setting  forth  the  principles  on  which  the 
peoples  of  India  were  thenceforth  to  be  governed.  But 
when  the  document  reached  the  Queen,  then  with  the 
Prince  Consort  and  their  eldest  daughter,  the  Princess  of 
Prussia,  at  Potsdam,  Her  Majesty  returned  it,  desiring^ 
the  Premier  to  rewrite  it,  "bearing  in  mind  that  it  is  a 
female  sovereign  who  speaks  to  more  than  a  hundred 

^  The  Life  of  His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince  Consort,  by  Theodore 
Martin,  vol.  iv.  pp.  284  and  335  (1879). 

I 


114  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

millions  of  Eastern  peoples  on  assuming  the  direct  govern- 
ment over  them,  and  after  a  bloody  civil  war,  giving  them 
pledges  which  her  future  reign  is  to  redeem,  and  explaining 
the  principles  of  her  government.  Such  a  document  should 
breathe  feelings  of  generosity,  benevolence,  and  religious 
toleration,  and  point  out  the  privileges  which  the  Indians 
will  receive  on  being  placed  on  an  equality  with  the 
subjects  of  the  British  Crown,  and  the  prosperity  following 
in  the  train  of  civilisation." 

To  the  new  draft  the  Queen  added,  with  her  own  hand, 
on  the  suggestion  of  the  Prince  Consort,  the  words  which 
we  print  in  italics,  in  the  central  paragraphs  and  the  closing 
prayer  of  the  Proclamation  : — 

"  We  hold  Ourselves  bound  to  the  natives  of  Our  Indian  Territories 
by  the  same  obligations  of  duty  which  bind  Us  to  all  Our  other 
subjects,  and  those  obligations,  by  the  Blessing  of  Almighty  God, 
We  shall  faithfully  and  conscientiously  fulfil 

'^Finnly  relying  Ourselves  on  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and  acknow- 
ledging with  gratitude  the  solace  of  religion,  We  disclaim  alike  the 
Right  and  tlie  Desire  to  impose  Our  convictions  on  any  of  Our  sub- 
jects. We  declare  it  to  be  Our  Royal  Will  and  Pleasure  that  none  be  in 
any  wise  favoured,  none  molested  or  disquieted,  by  reason  of  their 
religious  faith  or  observances  ;  but  that  all  shall  alike  enjoy  the 
equal  and  impartial  protection  of  the  law :  and  We  do  strictly 
charge  and  enjoin  all  those  who  may  be  in  authority  under  Us,  that 
they  abstain  from  all  interference  with  the  religious  belief  or  worship 
of  any  of  Our  subjects,  on  pain  of  Our  highest  displeasure 

"When,  by  the  Blessing  of  Providence,  internal  tranquillity  shall 
be  restored,  it  is  Our  earnest  desire  to  stimulate  the  peaceful  industry 
of  India,  to  promote  works  of  public  utility  and  improvement,  and 
to  administer  its  government  for  the  benefit  of  all  Our  subjects  resident 
therein.  In  their  prosperity  will  be  Our  strength  ;  in  their  content- 
ment Our  security  ;  and  in  their  gratitude  Our  best  reward.  And 
inay  the  God  of  all  Power  grant  to  Us  and  to  those  in  authmHty  under 
Us,  strength  to  carry  out  these  Our  wishes  for  the  good  of  Our  people.'" 

Lord  Canning,  the  Governor  -  General,  who  now  be- 
came the  first  Viceroy  of  India,  having  reported  that  the 
Proclamation  had  been  received  throughout  India  with 
cordial  and  unqualified  approval,  her  Majesty  replied, 
"The  Queen  rejoices  to  hear  that  the  Viceroy  approves 


115 

the  passage  about  religion.  She  strongly  insisted  on  it." 
To  Lord  Stanley,  on  the  same  day  that  he  addressed  the 
Queen,  Lord  Canning  had  written,  "I  cannot  tell  you 
with  what  pleasure  I  have  read  the  passages  relating  to 
religion.  They  are  in  every  way  admirable,  and  I  almost 
envy  you  being  ^persecuted  for  them,  as  you  infallibly  will 
be."  It  was  not  so.  The  comment  of  the  Friend  of  India  ^ 
on  the  Proclamation  was  more  just :  "  The  official  recog- 
nition of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  ruler  will  ter- 
minate many  discussions,  while  the  act  of  mercy  is  a 
graceful  commencement  of  a  new  regime.  .  .  .  The 
revolution  is  one  the  vastness  of  which  only  the  next 
generation  will  appreciate.  It  is  the  principle  of  our 
Government,  not  its  external  form,  which  has  been 
changed,  and  to  the  mass  of  men  a  new  principle  is  as 
imperceptible  as  the  soul.  ...  A  century  hence  men  will 
date  the  history  of  progress  from  the  Proclamation  of  the 
Queen."  2 

No  constitution,  not  even  that  of  the  United  States  of 
America  until  its  thirteenth  amendment  in  1865,  had 
ever  before  so  completely  recognised,  the  principle  of 
toleration  in  matters  of  faith  and  worship  involving  the 
conscience  and  the  right  of  private  judgment,  or  had  so 
generously  conceded  to  multitudinous  aliens  equality  be- 
fore the  law  and  in  the  administration.  At  its  highest  and 
widest  the  citizenship  of  Imperial  Rome,  in  which  the 
apostle  Paul  rejoiced,  was  a  small  thing  compared  with 
the  gift  made  to  peoples  of  almost  every  race,  creed,  and 
colour,  now  numbering  nearly  three  hundred  millions, 
and  that  after  mutiny  and  partial  rebellion.  From  the 
hour  of  that  concession  the  history  of  the  British  Empire 
of  India  really  began.  From  the  day  which  put  Christi- 
anity, though  the  avowed  faith  of  the  ruling  race,  on  the 
same  equal  platform  as  Hinduism,  Parseeism,  Buddhism, 
Mohammedanism,  Animism,  and  all  other  purely  human 
modes  of  propitiating  Cod,  as  Christ  Himself  put  it  before 

1  Then  edited  by  Meredith  Townsend,  Esq.,  now  of  The  Spectator. 

2  Under  Act  of  Parliament  the  Queen  was  proclaimed  Empress  of 
India  on  1st  January  1878. 


116  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

His  Roman  judge,  the  conversion  of  India  to  the  one  true 
and  living  God  became  an  assured  certainty.  Not  a 
metaphysical  distinction  as  to  the  incarnation,  not  a  lie  or 
a  deception  backed  by  the  fear  of  torture  and  persecution, 
not  a  theological  system  or  rite  attracting  by  the  hope  of 
office  and  the  favour  of  the  ruler,  but  Christ  Himself  com- 
mending the  truth  to  every  man's  conscience.  His  redeeming 
love  to  every  sinner's  heart,  has  since  1858  been  the  mess- 
age of  Christendom  in  the  East. 

One  generation  has  passed  since  that  Proclamation,  and 
the  new  principle  has  been  seen  working  itself  out  in  the 
two  regions  of  State  legislation  and  administration  and  of 
evangelical  persuasion  and  absorption.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  long  three  thousand  years'  history  of  the  elder 
Aryans  in  Southern  Asia,  the  revelation  of  the  one  and 
universal  personal  God  of  love  has  been  made  to  them; 
and  the  truth  that  God  is  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  Himself,  not  imputing  to  men  their  trespasses,  has 
been  declared  to  India's  conflicting,  groping,  despairing, 
caste-bound,  or  indifferent  peoples,  under  conditions  of  more 
absolute  freedom  to  accept  or  reject  it  than  exist  in 
Christendom  itself  outside  of  the  United  States  of 
America.  The  imperial  Sovereign,  her  Viceroy,  and  the 
whole  ruling  class,  claim  for  themselves  only  what  they 
concede  to  the  Hindu  and  Mohammedan,  and  every  reli- 
gionist. The  conversion  of  India  since  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  proceeds  on  the  principle  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  middle  of  the  first.  The  constitutional 
position  and  administrative  action  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment of  India  cannot  be  too  carefully  studied  or  too 
strongly  insisted  on  in  the  history  of  the  religious  de- 
velopment of  its  peoples. 

Heartily  accepting  the  principle  of  the  perfect  equality 
of  all  creeds  and  religions  before  the  law,  the  Christian 
power  entrusted  with  the  Government  of  India  after  so 
historically  unique  a  fashion  had  two  duties  :  First,  the 
State  must  secure  perfect  liberty  to  its  own  Christian 
servants  to  discharge  their  personal  service  to  God  in  their 
non-official  character.     Second,  the  State  must,  by  legisla- 


GREAT  BRITAIN'S   ATTEMPT  117 

tion,  on  the  one  hand  remove  every  obstacle  to  the 
unfettered  freedom  of  worship  of  all  religionists,  while  on 
the  other  it  guards  against  the  danger  of  indirectly 
sanctioning  and,  as  it  were,  fossilising  quasi-religious 
customs  and  beliefs  which  are  contrary  to  humanity,  to 
good  morals,  or  to  liberty. 

The  course  of  the  history  of  British  India  during  the 
last  thirty -five  years,  illustrates  these  points.  Even 
Lord  Canning,  a  year  after  he  had  expressed  such  keen 
satisfaction  with  the  provision  of  the  Queen's  Proclamation 
as  to  religion,  censured  a  high  civil  officer  in  the  Punjab 
for  attending  in  his  private  capacity  and  his  leisure 
hours  the  baptism  of  a  native  convert.^  Inferior  officers 
at  the  head  of  the  provincial  departments  of  public 
instruction,  themselves  sceptics,  attempted  to  prevent 
Christian  professors  in  the  State  colleges  "^  from  privately, 
in  their  own  houses  and  out  of  college  hours,  instructing 
inquirers.  Lord  Canning  had  even  objected  to  the  distri- 
bution of  anonymous  tracts  among  the  natives  near 
Benares,  so  sensitive  was  he  as  to  what  came  to  be  called 
the  "neutrality"  promulgated  in  1858.  The  worst,  and 
we  may  say  the  last  instance  of  this  violation  of  neutrality 
by  the  Viceroy  himself,  was  an  order  cautioning  officers  to 
guard  against  compromising  themselves  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion in  native  regiments.  L^p  to  this  time,  except  among 
the  Romanist  sepoys  of  the  Madras  army,  the  profession 
of  conversion  to  Christ  by  any  sepoy  whatever  had  in- 
volved persecution  and  dismissal.  Prabhu  Deen,  sepoy, 
was  so  expelled  in  the  year  1819.  The  compulsion  to 
salute  idols  had  driven  from  the  high  office  of  commander- 
in-chief  Sir  Peregrine  Maitland,  and  that  iniquity  was 
brought  to  an  end.  But  the  170,000  sepoys  of  the  East 
India  Company's  army  had  been  always  carefully  guarded 
from  the  free  and  natural  influence  of  Christian  truth,  and 
the  result  was  the  delusion  which  used  the  greased  cart- 
ridges as  an  occasion  of  mutiny. 

^  Mr.  E,.  N.  Gust,  LL.D.,  at  Amritsar,  afterwards  Lord  Lawrence's 
Home  Secretary  in  Calcutta. 

2  Notably  in  Bengal  and  Bombay. 


118  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

The  24tli  Punjab  Regiment,  consisting  of  Muzabi  or 
low-caste  Sikhs  whose  fathers  had  been  Thugs,  when 
fighting  for  the  British  Empire  at  the  siege  of  Delhi,  found 
among  its  spoils  some  Christian  books  which  led  them  to 
ask  instruction  from  their  officers.  These  referred  the  in- 
quirers to  the  Church  missionaries  at  Amritsar,  £.nd  after- 
wards at  Peshawur.  The  Viceroy's  action  was  taken  by 
all  parties,  as  "a  ban  upon  the  Christian  religion,"  and 
the  bishop,  then  happily  Dr.  Cotton,  did  his  duty.^  The 
result  was  a  despatch,  described  by  him  in  a  letter  to  the 
Viceroy  as  "very  fair  and  very  conciliatory.  ...  It  cer- 
tainly should  help  to  disabuse  people  of  the  notion  that 
Government  wish  to  impede  the  quiet  and  peaceful  pro- 
gress of  Christianity."  That  particular  movement  was 
checked  by  the  action  of  Government,  which  has  since  en- 
rolled the  Christian  Karens  in  a  battalion  during  the  last 
Burmese  war,  and  it  is  well  understood  that  military  no 
less  than  civil  officers  may  use  their  private  influence  and 
leisure  time,  as  enjoined  by  their  Master,  without  question, 
but  with  discretion.  It  is  well  recognised  that  the  pro- 
fession of  Christianity  by  the  natives  of  India  means  a 
loyalty  to  the  Empress  which  nothing  can  buy,  and  the 
only  safeguard  for  satisfactory  self-government  when  the 
time  is  full. 

Nowhere  shall  we  find  the  principle  of  religious  equality 
applied  to  the  many  peculiar  difficulties  that  arise  out  of 
the  government  of  the  non-Christian  millions  of  India  by 
a  Christian  state,  with  such  wisdom  as  by  John,  afterwards 
the  first  Lord  Lawrence,  when  at  the  head  of  the  fifty-six 
choice  civil  and  military  officials,  through  whom  he  re- 
covered North- Western  India  from  the  chaos  of  the  Mutiny. 
While  still  Chief  Commissioner,  Lawrence  wrote  his  great 
Minute  of   21st  April   1858.       Sir   Herbert   Edwardes  ^ 

^  The  whole  case  is  very  fairly  stated  in  the  Memoir  of  George 
Edward  Lynch  Cotton,  D.D.,  edited  by  Mrs.  Cotton,  p.  156  (1871). 

2  Ruskin's  hero.  See  A  KnigMs  Faith:  Passages  in  the  Life  of 
Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  collected  by  John  Ruskin,  1885  ;  also 
Edwardes'  liCcture  on  Our  Indian  Empire:  its  Beginning  and  End, 
to  young  men  in  Exeter  Hall,  1860. 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  119 

had  officially  sent  him  a  somewhat  extreme  memorandum 
on  "  the  elimination  of  all  unchristian  principle  from  the 
Government  of  India."  Sir  Donald  M'Leod  passed  on  the 
communication  with  a  letter  which  he  pronounced  "  more 
moderate  in  its  tone  and  marked  by  an  enlightened  and 
excellent  spirit."  Lawrence  was  willing  to  teach  the  Bible 
in  State  schools,  and  in  voluntary  classes  wherever  there 
were  Christian  teachers,  "in  order  that  our  views  of 
Christian  duty  might  be  patent  to  the  native  public." 
Edwardes  would  have  resumed  idol  endowments,  Lawrence 
declared  that  "the  judgments  of  Providence  would  become 
manifest  in  the  political  disaffection  which  might  ensue," 
and  such  a  step  would  retard  the  progress  of  Christianity 
while  it  is  condemned  by  the  whole  tenor  of  its  teachings. 
On  the  subject  of  caste  John  Lawrence  pointed  out  that 
Government  had  not  recognised  it  except  in  the  sepoy 
army,  urged  the  raising  of  sweeper  regiments  as  he  himself 
had  done,  and  of  corps  from  the  non- Aryan  tribes,  and  antici- 
pated the  "  happy  time  "  when  regiments  of  native  Chris- 
tians could  be  raised.  But  while  encouraging  sepoys  to 
consult  missionaries,  he  condemned  preaching  to  the  native 
soldiers  in  a  body,  unless  they  were  of  the  aboriginal 
tribes  destitute  of  a  faith.  He  refused  to  disallow  native 
holidays ;  earnestly  desired  to  see  the  law  altered  in  refer- 
ence to  polygamy  and  early  betrothals;  would  prohibit 
religious  processions  in  public  as  he  did  in  the  case  of  the 
Mohurrum  at  Delhi,  and  would  interdict  obscenities  in 
temples  ;  would  restrict  prostitutes  to  their  houses  ;  would 
increase  the  number  of  married  soldiers  and  improve  the 
condition  of  their  wives  and  widows;  condemned  the  opium 
monopoly,  but  did  not  agree  as  to  the  evil  tendency  of  the 
liquor  excise  in  the  Punjab,  where  it  has  diminished  the 
drunkenness  encouraged  in  the  Sikh  regime.  The  despatch 
concludes  with  this  noble  passage  : — 

"Sir  J.  Lawrence  has  been  led,  in  common  with  others  since  the 
occurrence  of  the  awful  events  of  1857,  to  ponder  deeply  on  what  may 
be  the  faults  and  shortcomings  of  the  British  as  a  Christian  nation  in 
India.  In  considering  topics  such  as  those  treated  of  in  this  despatch, 
he  would  solely  endeavour  to  ascertain  what  is  our  Christian  duty. 


120  THE   CONVERSION    OF   INDIA 

Having  ascertained  that  according  to  our  erring  lights  and  conscience, 
he  would  follow  it  out  to  the  uttermost,  undeterred  by  any  considera- 
tion. If  we  address  ourselves  to  this  task,  it  may,  with  the  blessing 
of  Providence,  not  prove  too  difficult  for  us.  Measures  have,  indeed, 
been  proposed  as  essential  to  be  adopted  by  a  Christian  Government 
which  would  be  truly  difficult  or  impossible  of  execution.  But  on 
closer  consideration  it  will  be  found  that  such  measures  are  not  en- 
joined by  Christianity,  but  are  contrary  to  its  spirit.  Sir  John 
Lawrence  does  entertain  the  earnest  belief  that  all  those  measures 
which  are  really  and  truly  Christian  can  be  carried  out  in  India,  not 
only  without  danger  to  British  rule,  but  on  the  contrary,  with  every 
advantage  to  its  stability.  Christian  things  done  in  a  Christian  way 
will  never,  the  Chief  Commissioner  is  convinced,  alienate  the  heathen. 
About  such  things  there  are  qualities  which  do  not  provoke  nor  excite 
distrust,  nor  harden  to  resistance.  It  is  when  unchristian  things  are 
done  in  the  name  of  Christianity,  or  when  Christian  things  are  done  in 
an  unchristian  way,  that  mischief  and  danger  are  occasioned.  The 
difficulty  is,  amid  the  political  complications,  the  conflicting  social 
considerations,  the  fears  and  hopes  of  self-interest  which  are  so  apt  to 
mislead  human  judgment,  to  discern  clearly  what  is  imposed  upon  us 
by  Christian  duty  and  what  is  not.  Having  discerned  this,  we  have 
but  to  put  it  into  practice.  Sir  John  Lawrence  is  satisfied  that,  with- 
in the  territories  committed  to  his  charge,  he  can  carry  out  aU  those 
measures  which  are  really  matters  of  Christian  duty  on  the  part  of  the 
Government.  And,  further,  he  believes  that  such  measures  will  arouse 
no  danger  ;  will  conciliate  instead  of  provoking,  and  will  subserve  to 
the  ultimate  difi'usion  of  the  truth  among  the  peox^le. 

"Finally,  the  Chief  Commissioner  would  recommend,  that  such 
measures  and  policy,  having  been  deliberately  determined  on  by  the 
Supreme  Government,  be  openly  avowed  and  universally  acted  upon 
throughout  the  empire ;  so  that  there  may  be  no  diversities  of  practice, 
no  isolated  tentative  or  conflicting  efl'orts,  which  are,  indeed,  the 
surest  means  of  exciting  distrust ;  so  that  the  people  may  see  that  we 
have  no  sudden  or  sinister  designs  ;  and  so  that  we  may  exhibit  that 
harmony  and  uniformity  of  conduct  which  befits  a  Christian  nation 
striving  to  do  its  duty." 

So  he  gave  back  to  the  Mohammedans  of  Delhi,  in  due 
time,  their  great  mosque,  and  when  Viceroy  he  restored 
the  Pearl  Mosque  of  Agra  and  the  Grand  Mosque  of 
Lahore,  which  in  Ran  jit  Singh's  time  the  Sikhs  had 
desecrated.  AVhen  the  petty  chief  of  Rajgarh,  in  Central 
India,  a  Rajpoot,  became  a  Mohammedan,  and  the  outcry 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  121 

of  his  Hindu  nobles  against  him  was  such  that  he  profjosed 
to  abdicate,  Lord  Lawrence  ascertained  that  his  people 
were  satisfied  with  his  rule,  and  decided  that  so  long  as 
their  chief  was  just  they  must  be  loyal  without  reference 
to  his  creed.  When  the  man  took  a  Mohammedan  name, 
after  circumcision,  the  paramount  Government  gave  him  a 
Mohammedan  title.  Even  in  the  Feudatory  States  of 
India  there  was  at  last  that  religious  toleration  which  the 
missionary  John  Wilson  ^  had  claimed  when  he  settled  the 
Irish  Presbyterians  in  Kathiawar,  and  Stephen  Hislop^ 
when  he  secured  the  liberty  of  Pandurang,  the  Brahman 
convert,  in  Nagpoor  State.  Eajgarh  is  the  leading  case 
which  establishes  in  Native  States  the  principle  accepted 
by  the  Legislature  in  civil  affairs,  that  "no  rights  shall 
be  forfeited  or  impaired  merely  by  change  of  religion  or 
loss  of  caste."  ^  There  is  now  no  great  Native  State  in 
India,  Hindu  or  Mohammedan,  in  which  there  are  not 
Christian  missionaries  and  churches.  There  only,  in  all 
the  world  of  Islam,  are  Mohammedans  constrained  to  be 
tolerant.  From  the  first,  such  Hindu  governments  as 
those  which  still  exist  in  Cochin  and  Travankor,  received 
Jewish,  Christian,  and  Parsee  refugees  all  along  the  Western 
Coast  of  India.  But  such  communities  were  not  aggres- 
sive in  the  high  spiritual  sense  of  the  present  missionaries 
of  the  evangel  sent  by  the  Eeformed  Churches. 

In  the  department  of  Public  Instruction,  which  in  each 
of  the  twelve  Provincial  Governments  of  India  bene- 
volently undertakes  the  education  of  the  millions  not  in 
the  Feudatory  States,  it  has  been  difficult  even  up  to  the 
present  time  to  observe  strictly  the  principle  of  the  Pro- 
clamation of  1858.  Theoretically  the  State  should  keep 
aloof  from  direct  teaching,  confining  its  administration  to 
inspection  and  grants-in-aid  for  secular  efficiency.  After 
the  evidence  before  the  Committee  on  the  Charter  of  1853 
given  by  two  remarkable  men  of  missionary  antecedents, 
Dr.  Alexander  Duff  and  John  Clark  Marshman,  C.S.L,  the 

1  Ufe  of  John  Wilson,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  1st  ed.,  p.  294  (1878). 

2  Stephen  Hislop,  2nd  ed.,  p.  106  (1889). 

'  Lord  Lawrence.     By  Sir  Charles  Aitchison.     Oxford  (1892). 


122  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

despatch  of  1854  laid  down  this  principle,  and  added,  with 
respect  to  religious  instruction  in  the  G-overnment  Institu- 
tions :  "  These  Institutions  were  founded  for  the  benefit 
of  the  whole  population  of  India ;  and  in  order  to  effect 
their  object  it  was,  and  is,  indispensable  that  the  educa- 
tion conveyed  in  them  should  be  exclusively  secular.  The 
Bible  is,  we  understand,  placed  in  the  libraries  of  the 
colleges  and  schools,  and  the  pupils  are  free  to  consult  it. 
This  is  as  it  should  be,  and,  moreover,  we  have  no  desire 
to  prevent  or  to  discourage  any  explanations  which  the 
pupils  may  of  their  own  free  will  ask  from  their  masters 
on  the  subject,  provided  such  information  is  given  out  of 
school  hours."  The  same  despatch  established  on  a  catholic 
basis  the  Universities  of  India,  now  five  in  number. 
But  its  provisions  were  long  so  applied  that  the  State 
colleges  became  virtual  monopolies  which  destroyed  Hin- 
duism and  discouraged  Christianity,  while  putting  nothing 
in  the  place  of  their  moral  sanctions.  Under  the  influence 
of  the  missionary  representatives  in  their  Syndicates 
the  Universities  were  at  first  practically  fair  to  all 
needs ;  but  the  native  majorities  have  of  late  eliminated 
the  legitimate  Christian  element  from  their  administration. 
Ten  years  ago  a  commission  appointed  by  Lord  Eipon 
led  to  a  return  to  neutrality  ;  but  so  long  as  State  colleges 
exist,  however  few,  that  is  incomplete.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  the  independent  Christian  colleges  and  schools  which, 
by  the  superior  efficiency  of  their  teaching  of  literature 
and  science,  secure  greater  popularity  and  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  grants  than  the  non-Christian  independent 
colleges. 

The  legislative  even  more  than  the  administrative 
action  of  the  Government  of  India,  since  the  East  India 
Company  gave  place  to  the  Crown,  is  calculated  to  allow 
a  fair  field  to  the  evangelisation  of  India.  In  1860  the 
Penal  Code  became  law,  and  at  one  stroke  gave  the  varied 
cults  of  Southern  Asia,  in  common  with  the  Christians, 
the  most  humanising  and  indirectly  Christianising  piece 
of  jurisprudence  that  the  world  has  seen.  Aided  by  Sir 
J.  M.  Macleod,  Lord  Macaulay,  sixty  years  ago,  drafted 


GREAT  BRITAIN'S  ATTEilPT  123 

this  body  of  criminal  enactments  on  the  basis  of  Living- 
ston's Code  of  Louisiana  and  the  Code  Penal  of  France, 
just  at  the  time  Austin  published  his  great  work.  The 
draft  was  distrusted  by  a  whole  generation  of  Indian 
experts  till  one  of  Macaulay's  successors,  Sir  Barnes  Pea- 
cock, took  it  in  hand  and  passed  it  through  the  Legisla- 
tive Council  as  Act  XLY.  of  1860.  The  Code  owes  to 
Macaulay  its  good  English  and  its  remarkable  illustrative 
cases  under  each  section.  The  experience  of  the  Code 
during  the  past  generation  has  falsified  the  fears  of  the 
local  judges,  and  has  more  than  justified  Macleod  and 
Macaulay.  So  acute  an  expert  as  Sir  Fitz-James  Stephen 
has  declared  it  to  be  "triumphantly  successful.'^  His 
successor  as  law  member  of  the  Governor-General's  Council, 
Mr.  Whitley  Stokes,  the  great  scholar,  describes  its  study 
in  English  by  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  as  "  self-educa- 
tion." It  has  been  translated  into  all  the  languages  of 
India,  with  results  in  teaching  humanity  and  justice  which 
place  our  fellow -subjects  there  at  the  head  of  all  the 
peoples  of  the  East.  Since  it  was  drafted,  this  Indian 
Code  has  found  imitators  in  those  of  the  State  of  New 
York  and  the  German  Empire.  These  have  improved  on 
it  only  in  the  methodical  arrangement,  and  they  have  had 
few  of  its  difficulties  to  contend  with,  arising  from  crimes 
peculiar  to  India  or  Asia,  and  from  the  political  position. 

The  Code,  embodying  and  applying  the  principles  of 
religious  toleration,  is  in  one  sense  the  charter  of  that 
liberty  which  Christianity  alone  teaches,  and,  when  true 
to  itself,  enforces  and  secures.  Jurists  like  Macaulay  and 
Barnes  Peacock  were  succeeded  by  one  greater  than  either 
in  this  region.  Sir  Henry  Sumner  Maine.  Alike  as  law 
member  of  the  Governor-General's  Council  for  seven  years, 
and  as  yice-Chancellor  of  the  Calcutta  University  for  four, 
that  statesman  applied  to  India,  to  its  native  Christians  as 
to  its  Parsees,  to  its  European  and  American  Christians  as  to 
its  Hindus  and  Mohammedans,  the  best  fruits  of  Christian 
legislation  in  the  West,  in  all  those  matters  of  inheritance, 
marriage,  and  civil  rights  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of 
society,  as  they  are  the  finest  practical  fruit  of  the  Christi- 


124  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

anised  intellect  and  conscience.  Except  in  the  two  ques- 
tions of  Hindu  child-marriages,  and  minors  and  the  age  of 
discretion — the  latter  still  left  to  the  equity  of  judges  in 
Christendom — Maine  completed,  substantially,  the  State's 
duty  in  the  conversion  of  India.  In  the  -Eede  Lecture 
which,  after  his  return  to  England,  he  delivered  before  the 
University  of  Cambridge  in  1875,  he  used  this  language, 
which  the  Christian  apologist  will  interpret  as  true  of  the 
Hellenic  fulness  of  the  time  : — 

"  The  difficulty  of  the  experiment  of  governing  India,  if  conscienti- 
ously examined,  will  be  regarded  with  more  consideration.  There  is 
a  doublp  current  of  influences  playing  upon  this  remarkable  dominion. 
One  of  these  cmi-ents  has  its  origin  in  this  country,  beginning  in  the 
strong  moral  and  political  convictions  of  a  free  people.  The  other 
arises  in  India  itself,  engendered  among  a  dense  and  dark  vegetation 
of  primitive  opinion,  of  prejudice  if  you  please,  stubbornly  rooted  in 
the  (Uhris  of  the  past.  As  has  been  truly  enough  said,  the  British 
rulers  of  India  are  like  men  bound  to  make  their  watches  keep  true 
time  in  two  longitudes  at  once.  Nevertheless,  the  paradoxical  position 
must  be  accepted.  If  they  are  too  slow,  there  will  be  no  improvement ; 
if  they  are  too  fast,  there  will  be  no  security.  Those  who,  guided 
solely  by  Western  social  experience,  are  too  eager  for  innovations 
which  seem  to  them  undistinguishable  from  improvements,  will,  per- 
haps, be  overtaken  by  a  wholesome  distrust  when  they  see  in  institu- 
tions and  customs  which  would  otherwise  appear  to  them  ripe  for 
destruction  the  materials  of  knowledge  by  which  the  past,  and  to  some 
extent  the  present,  of  the  West  may  be  interpreted.  On  the  other 
hand,  though  it  be  virtually  impossible  to  reconcile  the  gi'eat  majority 
of  the  natives  of  India  to  the  triumph  of  Western  ideas,  manners,  and 
practices,  which  is,  nevertheless,  inevitable,  we  may,  at  all  events, 
say  to  the  best  and  most  intelligent  of  them  that  we  do  not  renovate 
or  destroy  in  mere  arrogance.  Whatever  be  the  nature  and  value  of 
that  bundle  of  influences  which  we  call  'Progress,'  nothing  can  be 
more  certain  than  that,  when  a  society  is  once  touched  by  it,  it  spreads 
like  a  contagion.  Yet,  so  far  as  our  knowledge  extends,  there  was 
only  one  society  in  which  it  was  endemic,  and,  putting  that  aside,  no 
race  or  nationality  left  entirely  to  itself  appears  to  have  developed  any 
very  great  intellectual  result,  except  perhaps  poetry.  Not  one  of  those 
intellectual  excellences  which  we  regard  as  characteristic  of  the  great 
progressive  races  of  the  world — not  the  law  of  the  Romans,  not  the 
philosophy  and  sagacity  of  the  Germans,  not  the  luminous  order  of 
the  French,  not  the  political  aptitude  of  the  English,  not  that  in- 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  125 

sight  into  physical  nature  to  which  all  races  have  contributed— would, 
apparently,  have  come  into  existence  if  these  races  had  been  left  to 
themselves.  To  one  small  people,  covering  in  the  original  seat  no 
more  than  a  handful  of  territory,  it  was  given  to  create  the  principle 
of  progress,  of  movement  upwards  and  not  backwards  or  downwards— 
of  destruction  tending  to  construction.  That  people  was  the  Greek. 
Except  the  blind  forces  of  Xature,  nothing  moves  in  this  world  which 
is  not  Greek  in  its  origin.  A  ferment  spreading  from  that  source  has 
vitalised  all  the  great  progressive  races  of  mankind,  penetrating  from 
one  to  another,  and  producing  results  accordant  with  its  hidden  and 
latent  genius,  and  results,  of  course,  often  far  greater  than  exhibited 
in  Greece  itself.  It  is  this  principle  of  progress  which  we  Englishmen 
are  communicating  to  India.  We  did  not  create  it.  We  deserve  no 
special  credit  for  it.  It  came  to  us  filtered  through  many  different 
media.  But  we  have  received  it,  and,  as  we  have  received  it,  so  we 
pass  it  on.  There  is  no  reason  why,  if  it  has  time  to  work,  it  should 
not  develop  in  India  effects  as  wonderful  as  in  others  of  the  societies 
of  mankind." 

In  1850  the  last  of  the  East  India  Company's  Governors- 
General,  the  Marquis  of  Dalhousie,  had  caused  Act  XXI. 
to  be  passed  for  securing,  in  his  own  language,^  "liberty 
of  conscience,  and  for  the  protection  of  converts,  and 
especially  of  Christian  converts,  against  injury  in  respect 
of  property  or  inheritance  by  reason  of  a  change  in  their 
religious  belief."  What  was  thus  done  for  inheritance 
Maine  elaborated  and  applied  to  marriage  and  divorce  in 
Act  XXI.  of  1866.  On  the  day  on  which,  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  Lord  Lawrence  as  Viceroy,  the  Act  was 
passed,  the  great  lawyer  happened  to  preside  in  Council, 
and  from  the  Viceroy's  seat  he  closed  his. exposition  of  the 
law  of  conversion,  especially  in  an  empire  like  British 
India,  with  these  memorable  words  :  "  We  will  not  force 
any  man  to  be  a  Christian ;  we  will  not  even  tempt  any 
man  to  be  a  Christian  ;  but  if  he  chooses  to  become  a 
Christian,  it  would  be  shameful  if  we  did  not  protect  him 
and  his  in  those  rights  of  conscience  which  we  have  been  the 
first  to  introduce  into  the  country,  and  if  we  did  not  apply 
to  him  and  his  those  principles  of  equal  dealing  between 

^  Minute  by  the  Most  Noble  the  Governor-Getieral  of  India,  dated  the 
28th  of  February  1856  (Calcutta). 


126  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

man  and  man  of  which  we  are  in  India  the  sole  deposi- 
taries." What  a  contrast  to  the  Greek  and  the  Eoman, 
the  Portuguese  and  the  Dutch  principles  and  precedents ! 

But  the  good  work  is  not  yet  accomplished.  In  the 
development  of  society,  and  the  growth  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  India,  questions,  generally  of  detail  rather  than 
of  principle,  are  always  demanding  settlement.  The 
Legislature  cannot  in  these  go  ahead  of  Hindu  and 
Mohammedan  opinion  too  fast,  while  the  Church  must 
beware  of  asking  the  State  to  attempt  by  prohibitive 
enactment  what  should  be  the  natural,  if  slow,  outcome 
of  ethical  and  spiritual  progress.  Hence  the  reply  ^  of 
the  Government  of  India  in  1881  to  a  memorial  from 
the  American  Marathi  missionaries  in  Western  India :  "  It 
would  scarcely  be  possible  for  the  Government  of  India 
to  embark  on  legislation  in  connection  with  infant-marriages 
except  at  the  wish  and  with  the  co-operation  of  the  classes 
most  closely  interested.  ...  It  may  be  hoped  that  the 
growing  enlightenment  of  the  Hindus  may  lead  them 
before  long  to  seek  an  alteration  of  the  Hindu  law  re- 
garding infant-marriages,  in  order  that  the  injustice  and 
unhappiness  which  are  so  often  occasioned  by  it  may 
be  averted  from  all,  whether  they  are  received  into  the 
Christian  community  or  remain  Hindus." 

In  1853,  when,  as  Lieutenant-Governor,  he  opened  the 
Government  college  at  Benares,  James  Thomason,  the  most 
wisely  benevolent  of  all  the  East  India  Company's  admini- 
strators since  Charles  Grant,  spoke  to  the  Brahmans  of 
that  central  stronghold  of  Hinduism  of  the  coming  con- 
version of  the  races  of  India.  With  assured  faith  he 
described  it  as  "a  new  state  of  things  when  a  higher 
philosophy  and  a  purer  faith  will  pervade  this  land,  not 
enforced  by  the  arbitrary  decrees  of  a  persecuting  govern- 
ment, not  hypocritically  professed  to  meet  the  wishes  of 
a  proselytising  government,  but  cordially  adopted  by  a 
willing  people  yielding  to  the  irresistible  arguments  placed 
before  them."     This  sure  because  supernatural  process  of 

1  See  Report  of  the  Third  Decennial  Missionary  Conference  held  at 
Bombay  1892-93,  p.  61. 


GREAT  BRITAIN'S   ATTEMPT  127 

evangelical  persuasion  and  absorption  is  slow  on  account 
of  the  human  factor.  The  faith  and  obedience  of  every 
Christian  comes  far  short  of  the  promises  and  the  com- 
mand of  the  great  God  our  Saviour.  For  centuries  these 
were  invisible  even  in  the  Eeformed  Churches,  which,  in 
their  standards,  ritual,  and  theological  systems,  almost 
ignore  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  England  had 
been  put  in  trust  of  India  for  two  hundred  years  before  an 
English  missionary  as  such  gave  the  message  of  Christ  to 
its  millions,  and  then  he  dared  not  leave  the  protection  of 
the  Danish  flag. 

When,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  individual 
Christians  as  distinct  from  Church  organisations  introduced 
what  was  then  called  the  new  era  of  Benevolence,  it  seemed 
as  if  India  would  continue  to  be  abandoned  by  Christendom 
to  commercial  monopolists  and  antichristian  intolerance. 
The  awaking  enthusiasm  sought  the  negro  slaves  of  America, 
just  as  the  temporarily  -  aroused  conscience  of  Puritan 
Britain  had  attempted  to  save  its  Bed  Indians.  Next  in 
interest  to  the  negroes  were  the  allied  islanders  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean  when  first  revealed  by  Captain  Cook.  Then 
came,  as  the  objects  of  compassion,  the  negroes  of  West 
Africa.  Charles  Grant  had  written  from  India  to  Charles 
Simeon,  ofi'ering  to  support  English  missionaries  in  Bengal, 
but  not  an  Englishman  could  be  found  to  preach  the 
gospel  there. 

The  Moravian  Brethren,^  the  AVesleys,  the  Edinburgh, 
the  Glasgow,  and  the  London  ^  Missionary  Societies,  even 
the  Church  Missionary  Society,  passed  India  by  through 
the  first  thirteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  By 
small  collections  or  grants  of  money  and  books  only,  and 
by  a  message  from  King  George  I.,  through  the  two 
Anglican  Societies  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Know- 
ledge and  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,^  was  the  faint 
attempt  made  to  discharge  the  responsibility  of  English- 

1  The  brief  and  abortive  mission  of  Dr.  Heyne  and  another  to  Cal- 
cutta, Serampore,  and  Patna  in  1777. 

2  Mr.  Forsyth  was  sent  out  to  Calcutta  and  Chinsurah  in  1798. 
«  Classijied  Digest  of  the  Hecords  of  tlie  S.F.G.,  1701-1892, 


128  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

speaking  Christians.  The  United  States  of  America  did 
not  send  missionaries  to  India,  Congregationalist  or  Baptist, 
till  the  year  1813,  when  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
also  ordained  its  first  Englishman.  The  Wesleyans  fol- 
lowed in  1817.  Southey,  himself  an  Anglican,  taunted 
his  Church  with  its  failure  to  supply  missionaries  for 
India:  "The  first  step  towards  winning  the  natives  to 
our  religion  is  to  show  them  that  we  have  one.  .  .  .  There 
is  ability  and  there  is  learning  in  the  Church  of  England, 
but  its  age  of  fermentation  has  long  been  over.^ 

The  Englishman  who  was  chosen  by  God  to  change  all 
that  was  the  Baptist  shoemaker  and  schoolmaster,  William 
Carey.  Yet  as  Paul  when  sent  to  Macedonia  essayed  to 
penetrate  Asia,  Carey  himself  sought  Tahiti.  In  him  were 
found  the  necessary  faith  and  humility,  the  burning  fire 
which  Christ  came  to  send  on  the  earth,  and  the  gift  of 
tongues  or  scholarship  conferred  by  the  Wisdom  of  God. 
He  was  as  really  called  by  Christ  and  trained  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  the  Providence  of  God  to  be  the  English  apostle 
of  India  as  the  young  Pharisee,  Saul,  was  to  be  the  apostle 
of  Europe.  All  that  went  before  him  in  the  Coast  Mission 
of  the  south  was  preparatory,  save  only  the  translation  of 
the  Word  of  God  into  the  Tamil  tongue,  first  published 
in  1725.  Ziegenbalg,  Schult-ze,  and  even  Schwartz,  were 
Germans,  and  all  that  Denmark  could  do  for  them,  as 
for  Carey,  was  to  give  them  the  protection  of  its  flag  in 
Tranquebar  and  Serampore.  ^\niile  for  forty- one  years 
Carey  did  his  own  work  in  Northern  India,  and  he  and 
his  brotherhood  influenced  all  Asia  from  the  Persian  Gulf 
to  the  China  Sea,  this  apparently  obscure  Calvinist  was 
used  by  God  to  summon  Great  Britain  to  the  conversion 
of  India.  Society  after  society  started  into  life  at  his 
simple  call.  Scottish  gentlemen,  like  Eobert  and  James 
Haldane,  caught  the  impulse;  the  former  sold  Airthrey 
and  endowed  with  its  price,  £35,500,  the  mission  to 
Benares,  for  which  Charles  Grant  had  vainly  pled  with  the 

1  See  the  iirst  number  of  The  Quarterly  Review  for  April  1809, 
where  Southey  answers  Sydney  Smith's  attack  on  missions  to  India  in 
The  Edinburgh  Review. 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  129 

Church  of  England,  only  to  have  their  offering  and  them- 
selves driven  back  by  William  Pitt  and  Henry  Dundas,  to 
the  gain  of  Home  Missions  for  the  time.  Englishmen  like 
the  Cambridge  Senior  Wrangler,  Henry  Martyn,  learned 
from  him  to  do  the  work  of  an  evangelist  to  the  Moham- 
medans of  India,  Arabia,  and  Persia,  protected  by  the 
chaplain's  office,  as  the  missionary  had  been  first  by  the 
indigo-planter's  calling  and  then  by  the  Danish  Govern- 
ment. Americans,  like  Adoniram  Judson  and  his  wife, 
sailed  from  New  England  to  be  sent  by  Carey  to  Burma, 
and  to  found  the  great  Maratha  mission  of  Western  India. 
In  1830,  four  years  before  his  death,  Carey  wrote,  "But 
a  few  years  have  passed  away  since  the  Protestant  world 
was  awakened  to  missionary  effort.  Since  that  time  the 
annual  revenues  collected  for  this  object  have  grown  to 
the  then  unthought-of  sum  of  .£400,000,"  or  one-seventh 
of  what,  sixty-three  years  after,  is  given  for  the  evangel- 
isation of  the  whole  non-Christian  world. 

The  Churches  which  had  kept  out,  and  even  cast  out, 
the  evangelical  missionaries,  foreign  and  home,  up  till 
1830,  then  atoned,  in  Scotland  at  least,  for  their  treachery 
to  their  Head.  The  old  historic  Church  of  Scotland,  as 
a  Church,  became  a  missionary  organisation.  Thomas 
Chalmers  and  Dr.  Inglis  chose  India  as  its  field,  the  capital 
Calcutta  as  the  centre  of  its  operations,  and  Brahmanism 
as  the  special  object  of  its  aggressive  action.  Its  first 
missionary,  Alexander  Duff,  landed  in  Bengal  in  time  to 
receive  the  apostolic  succession,  in  the  highest  sense,  from 
the  venerable  Carey.  No  longer  compelled  by  the  East 
India  Company's  intolerant  system  to  hide  his  mission  in 
the  interior.  Duff  opened  his  Christian  school  in  Calcutta, 
in  the  chief  native  thoroughfare  of  Chitpore  Road.  He 
planted  his  mission -house  and  lecture -room,  and  finally 
his  college,  in  the  great  educational  centre  of  the  city, 
beside  which  there  has  since  risen  the  Catholic  Calcutta 
University. 

From  the  day  that  Carey's  earliest  "Periodical  Accounts" 
reached  Edinburgh  and  the  Ochils,  Scotland  has  been  true 
to  the  duty  of  the  British  Empire  to  the  people  of  India. 

K 


130  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

The  opposition  of  Pitt  drove  the  agents  of  the  Edinburgh 
Missionary  Society,  founded  in  1796,  to  the  Foulahs  of 
West  Africa  and  the  Mohammedan  Tartars  on  the  Caspian 
Sea,  But  after  the  more  tolerant  charter  of  1813,  when 
the  Scottish  as  well  as  the  English  Established  Church, 
led  by  Claudius  Buchanan,  first  sent  out  chaplains, 
that  missionary  society  transferred  its  men  to  India, 
sending  out  in  1823  Donald  Mitchell,  who,  when  a 
lieutenant  in  the  Company's  army,  had  found  Christ  for 
himself,  and  burned  to  preach  the  good  news  to  the  people. 
In  the  district  south  of  Bombay  where  he  lies,  he  was  followed 
by  university  men  of  equal  devotedness  and  culture,  like 
Eobert  Nesbit  and  John  Wilson,  who  in  1835  formally 
represented  the  Church  of  which  they  had  been  ordained 
ministers.  Duffs  early  successes,  like  those  of  Carey,  set  in 
motion  a  second  tide  of  missionary  enthusiasm,  on  which 
John  Anderson  and  others  were  wafted  to  the  city  of 
Madras  and  South  India  in  1837.  The  disruption  and 
historical  cessation  of  the  old  Church  of  Scotland  in 
1843  resulted  in  the  two  organisations  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  Free  and  Established.  The  former,  retaining  all 
the  missionaries  and  converts,  has  ever  since  extended  its 
operations  in  India  and  elsewhere.  The  latter,  after  a 
time,  has  in  the  old  building  and  with  the  old  endowments 
in  Calcutta  and  Madras,  and  in  the  new  fields  of  the 
Punjab  and  Darjeeling,  conducted  vigorous  missions. 

In  South  India  the  Danish  and  the  German  missionaries 
repeated,  on  a  smaller  scale  but  still  with  similarly 
disastrous  results,  the  mistake  of  the  Dutch  there  and  in 
Ceylon.  They  made  a  compromise  with  Hinduism,  which 
from  the  first  poisoned  their  native  Church  and,  after  the 
death  of  Schwartz  in  1798,  brought  it  almost  to  an  end. 
Eeceiving  the  pure  message  of  the  evangel,  having  in 
their  hands  the  Word  of  God  in  their  mother  tongue,  with 
schools  for  their  children,  and  foreigners  of  apostolic  life 
and  doctrine  as  their  pastors,  the  Tamil  Christians,  who 
individually  professed  conversion  to  Christ  to  the  number 
of  at  least  fifty  thousand  last  century,  proved  to  be  no 
more  a  self-propagating  and  spiritually  aggressive  Churcli 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  131 

than  that  of  the  Syrians  of  Malabar,  or  that  of  Rome  by 
their  side.  Caste  faced  the  missionaries  through  the 
eighteenth  century,  from  Ziegenbalg  to  Schwartz,  with  a 
power  that  seemed  as  if  it  could  never  be  shaken  or  broken. 
The  Lutherans  followed  the  Roman  Catholics  in  recognising 
it  as  a  social  distinction,  and  in  perpetuating  it  even  at  the 
Lord's  Table.  Brotherhood  in  the  Christian  communities 
became  impossible,  the  graces  of  the  Holy  Spirit  were 
choked  from  the  first ;  distrust  and  dissension,  pride  and 
malice,  made  havoc  of  the  infant  evangelical  Church.  The 
thousands  of  the  Tranquebar,  the  Tanjor,  the  Trichinopoly, 
the  Cuddalor,  and  the  Madras  caste  converts,  instead  of 
spreading  after  Schwartz's  death  like  the  leaven,  died  out, 
leaving  as  successors  a  few  score  who  dotted  the  desolation 
of  the  coast  when  in  1 849  Duff  ^  visited  it.  For  the  second 
time  in  India  the  Reformed  Churches  of  the  Continent  of 
Europe  made  a  fatal  mistake. 

As  the  nineteenth  century  went  on,  three  great  Mis- 
sionary Societies  of  England,  besides  the  first,  that  of  the 
Baptists  in  North  India,  practically  mapped  out  South 
India  among  them.  The  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel,  in  1829  becoming  directly  missionary  towards 
non- Christians,  took  over  the  native  congregations  and 
schools  under  six  German  missionaries  in  the  British 
districts,  relieving  the  Christian  Knowledge  Society  which 
had  been  supporting  them,  and  extended  the  work  begun 
by  Schwartz  and  by  Satiyanadan,  the  first  native  ordained 
by  the  Tranquebar  missionaries  in  Tinnevelli.  Before  that, 
in  1820,  when  Mr.  Hough  was  chaplain  at  Palamkotta,  he 
brought  about  the  Church  Missionary  Society's  entrance 
into  that  since  fruitful  field.  The  London  Missionary 
Society  at  a  still  earlier  period,  1804,  began  to  divide  w^th 
the  Church  Missionary  Society  the  equally  hopeful  region 
of  Travankor  and  Cochin,  the  scene  of  the  failures  of  the 
Syrians,  the  Romanists,  and  the  Lutherans.     In  Madura 

1  See  Dr.  Duffs  Diary,  at  pp.  133-144,  vol.  ii.  of  his  Life  (1879),  for 
the  effect  of  caste  on  the  Lutheran  and  Roman  Catholic  converts  ;  also 
Bishop  Wilson's  Life  by  Bateman,  and  Sherring's  History  of  Protestafii 
Missions  in  India,  1875. 


132  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

also  the  Propagation  Society  inherited  the  Lutheran 
work  at  Eamnad,  while  the  American  Board,  in  1834, 
began  their  network  of  missions  there,  which,  after  a 
struggle  ^  with  caste  among  the  Danish  converts  and  their 
descendants,  has  spread  over  the  district  where  the  great 
Jesuits  "failed  so  lamentably.  In  1850  Henry  M.  Scudder, 
M.D.,  of  the  Eeformed  (Dutch)  of  America,  began  among 
the  million  and  a  half  of  the  Hindus  of  North  Arcot  the 
medical  mission  which  has  since  made  that  Church  and  the 
Scudder  family  illustrious.  Taught  by  the  experience  of 
the  Danish-Halle  Lutherans,  and  by  the  early  failure  of  an 
attempt  at  Mangalor  to  meet  illegitimately  the  pressure 
of  the  Home  Churches  for  baptisms,  the  Basel  Evangelical 
Missionary  Society,  representing  the  warm  piety  of 
Wurtemberg,  has  since  1834  covered  the  western  districts 
of  the  province  of  Madras  with  industrial  missions  identi- 
fied with  the  names  of  Hebich,  Moegling,  and  Gundert. 
The  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society,  true  to  the  spirit  of 
Samuel  Wesley,  Rector  of  Epworth,  who  with  his  wife 
desired  to  go  out  to  India  where  Ziegenbalg  and  Schultze 
were  doing  so  much,  sent  missionaries  under  Dr.  Coke  to 
Ceylon  in  1813,  and  began  soon  after  the  remarkable 
mission  in  the  hill  country  of  Mysore,  now  a  self-governing 
Hindu  state  of  five  millions  of  people,  in  the  council  of 
which  one  of  its  missionaries  is  a  representative. 

With  hardly  an  exception  the  British  and  American 
Christian  missions  to  India  have  from  the  first — that  is 
from  the  year  1793,  when  William  Carey  began  his 
mission  work  in  the  indigo  swamps  of  the  Dinajpore 
district  of  North  Bengal  —  vigilantly  avoided  every 
appearance  of  compromise  with  Hinduism  in  life,  doctrine, 
and  ritual,  and  have  consistently  taught  (Matt,  xxviii.  18- 
20)  the  people  all  things  whatsoever  Christ  commanded. 

1  In  July  1847,  tlie  American  missionaries  passed  this  resolution — 
"  That  the  mission  regards  caste  as  an  essential  part  of  heathenism, 
and  its  full  and  practical  renunciation,  after  instruction,  as  essential 
to  satisfactory  evidence  of  piety  ;  and  that  renunciation  of  caste 
implies  at  least  a  readiness  to  eat,  under  proper  circumstances,  with 
any  Christians  of  any  caste." 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  133 

The  methods  followed  by  all  were  first  laid  down  by  Carey, 
and  most  persistently  applied  to  the  middle  and  educated 
classes  of  the  Hindus,  especially  the  Brahmans,  by  DufF. 

The  first  and  greatest  is  the  Word  of  God  translated 
into  the  mother  tongue  of  the  people,  and  printed,  circu- 
lated, and  taught  so  as  to  be  in  every  hand  and  in  many 
memories.  To  secure  this  was  Carey's  first  and  chief 
duty,  not  only  for  his  own  densely  peopled  provinces  of 
Bengal,  Bahar,  Orissa,  and  Assam,  but  for  all  Southern  Asia. 
In  the  eighteen  hours  of  every  day  of  the  forty-one  years 
during  which  he  lived  in  India,  he  did  every  kind  of 
missionary  work  short  of  the  medical,  but  all  he  did  was 
meant  to  result  in  the  jjroduction  and  printing  of  the  verna- 
^  cular  Bible  ^  for  every  race  in^the  southern  half  of  Asia, 
except  the  Tamils,  who  already  had  received  the  treasure. 
When  he  and  Marshman  and  Ward  had  fairly  started  this 
enterprise,  enlisting  the  chaplains  Henry  Martyn  and 
Thomason,  and  even  a  Roman  Catholic  scholarly  priest, 
with  a  fine  catholicity,  in  the  enterprise,  the  Serampore 
brotherhood  added  to  this  and  their  daily  vernacular 
preaching  the  foundation  and  endowment  of  a  Christian 

1  Sir  Charles  U.  Aitchison,  K.C.S.I.,  now  a  Vice-President  of  the 
CM.  Soc,  in  his  address  at  the  Centenary  of  the  Baptist  Missionary 
Society,  thus  spoke  of  the  Bible  in  India  :— "  The  Bible  is  the  best  of 
all  missionaries.  Missionaries  die,  the  printed  Bible  remains  for  ever. 
It  finds  access  through  doors  that  are  closed  to  the  human  foot,  and 
into  countries  where  missionaries  have  not  yet  ventured  to  go  ;  and, 
above  all,  it  speaks  to  the  consciences  of  men  with  a  power  that  no 
human  voice  can  carry.  It  is  the  living  seed  of  God,  and  soon  it 
springs  up,  men  know  not  how,  and  bears  fruit  unto  everlasting  life. 
I  can  tell  you,  from  my  own  personal  knowledge,  that  no  book  is  more 
studied  in  India  now  by  the  native  population  of  all  parties  than  the 
Christian  Bible.  There  is  a  fascination  about  it  that,  somehow  or 
other,  draws  seekers  after  God  to  read  it.  To  thousands  who  are  not 
Christians,  but  who  are  seeking  after  God,  the  Bible  in  the  vernaculars 
of  India  is  an  exceedingly  precious  book.  The  leader  of  the  Brahmo 
Somaj,  which  represents  the  highest  phase  of  educated  Hindu  thought, 
in  a  recent  lecture  to  the  students  of  the  Punjab  University,  exhorted 
them  seriously  to  study  the  Scriptures  as  the  best  guide  to  purity  of 
heart  and  life." 


134  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

college.  Carey  and  Marshman  were  the  first  educational 
missionaries,  not  only  because  they  were  men  of  culture 
and  foresight,  missionary  statesmen  who  must  adapt  their 
means  so  as  to  make  all  subservient  to  their  divine  end, 
but  because  they  sought  at  once  the  conversion  to  Christ 
of  the  born  leaders  of  the  people,  and  the  creation  of  an 
educated  indigenous  ministry. 

So  early  as  the  first  year  of  this  century  Carey  saw 
the  need  of  English  education  as  a  weapon  in  the  warfare 
with  Brahmanism,  when  he  wrote  to  his  Society  :  "  There 
appears  to  be  a  favourable  change  in  the  general  temper 
of  the  people.  Commerce  has  roused  new  thoughts  and 
awakened  new  energies;  so  that  hundreds,  if  we  could 
skilfully  teach  them  gratis,  would  crowd  to  learn  the 
English  language.  We  hope  this  may  be  in  our  power 
some  time,  and  may  be  a  happy  means  of  difi'using  the 
gospel.  Is  not  the  universal  inclination  of  the  Bengalees 
to  learn  English  a  favourable  circumstance  which  may  be 
improved  to  valuable  ends  ?  " 

In  1816  he  thus  wrote  to  the  American  Baptist  General 
Convention  of  Burma,  to  which  he  had  sent  Judson, 
following  his  eldest  son  : — 

"  We  know  not  what  your  immediate  expectations  are  relative  to  the 
Burman  empire,  but  we  hope  your  views  are  not  confined  to  the  imme- 
diate conversion  of  the  natives  by  the  preaching  of  the  Word.  Could 
a  church  of  converted  natives  be  obtained  at  Rangoon,  it  might  exist 
for  a  while,  and  be  scattered,  or  perish  for  want  of  additions.  From 
all  we  have  seen  hitherto,  we  are  ready  to  think  that  the  dispensations 
of  Providence  point  to  labours  that  may  operate,  indeed,  more  slowly 
on  the  population,  but  more  effectually  in  the  end :  as  knowledge, 
once  put  into  fermentation,  will  not  only  influence  the  part  where  it 
is  first  deposited,  but  leaven  the  whole  lump.  The  slow  progress  of 
conversion  in  such  a  mode  of  teaching  the  natives  may  not  be  so 
encouraging,  and  may  require,  in  all,  more  faith  and  patience  ;  but  it 
appears  to  have  been  the  process  of  things,  in  the  progress  of  the 
Reformation,  during  the  reigns  of  Henry,  Edward,  Elizabeth,  James, 
and  Charles.  And  should  the  work  of  evangelising  India  be  thus 
slow  and  silently  progressive,  which,  however,  considering  the  age  of 
the  world,  is  not  perhaps  very  likely,  still  the  grand  result  will  amply 
recompense  us,  and  you,  for  all  our  toils.     We  are  sure  to  take  the 


135 

fortress,  if  we  can  but  persuade  ourselves  to  sit  down  long  enough 
before  it.     '  We  shall  reap  if  we  faint  not. ' 

"And  then,  very  dear  brethren,  when  it  shall  be  said  of  the  seat 
of  our  labours,  The  infamous  swinging-post  is  no  longer  erected  ;  the 
widow  burns  no  more  on  the  funeral  pile  ;  the  obscene  dances  and 
songs  are  seen  and  heard  no  more  ;  the  gods  are  thrown  to  the  moles 
and  to  the  bats,  and  Jesus  is  known  as  the  God  of  the  whole  land  ; 
the  poor  Hindu  goes  no  more  to  the  Ganges  to  be  washed  from  his 
filthiness,  but  to  the  fountain  opened  for  sin  and  uncleanness  ;  the 
temples  are  forsaken  ;  the  crowds  say,  *  Let  us  go  up  to  the  house  of 
the  Lord,  and  He  shall  teach  us  of  His  ways,  and  we  will  walk  in  His 
statutes '  ;  the  anxious  Hindus  no  more  consrmie  their  property,  their 
strength,  and  their  lives  in  vain  pilgiimages,  but  they  come  at  once 
to  Him  who  can  save  to  '  the  uttermost ' ;  the  sick  and  the  dying  are 
no  more  dragged  to  the  Ganges,  but  look  to  the  Lamb  of  God,  and 
commit  their  souls  into  His  faithful  hands  ;  the  children,  no  more 
sacrificed  to  idols,  are  become  '  the  seed  of  the  Lord,  that  He  may 
be  glorified '  ;  the  public  morals  are  improved  ;  the  language  of 
Canaan  is  learnt ;  benevolent  societies  are  formed  ;  civilisation  and 
salvation  walk  arm  in  arm  together  ;  the  desert  blossoms  ;  the  earth 
yields  her  increase  ;  angels  and  glorified  spirits  hover  with  joy  over 
India,  and  carry  ten  thousand  messages  of  love  from  the  Lamb  in  the 
midst  of  the  throne  ;  and  redeemed  souls  from  the  different  villages, 
towns,  and  cities  of  this  immense  countiy  constantly  add  to  the 
number,  and  swell  the  chorus  of  the  redeemed,  '  Unto  Him  that  loved 
us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood,  unto  Him  be  the 
glory '  ; — when  this  grand  result  of  the  labours  of  God's  servants  in 
India  shall  be  realised,  shall  we  then  think  that  we  have  laboured  in 
vain,  and  spent  our  strength  for  nought  ?  Surely  not.  "Well,  the 
decree  is  gone  forth  !  '  My  word  shall  prosper  in  the  thing  whereunto 
I  sent  it.'" 

Two  years  after  Carey  applied  this  to  India  in  his 
Serampore  "  College  for  the  Instruction  of  Asiatic,  Chris- 
tian, and  Other  Youth  in  Eastern  Literature  and  European 
Science." 

By  the  time,  in  1830,  that  Duff  began  his  career  in 
India,  all  things  were  ready  for  such  an  evangelical  move- 
ment in  British  India,  under  Lord  William  Bentinck,  then 
not  only  tolerant  but  ready  to  applaud  and  imitate  the 
missionary.  The  first  Metropolitan,  Dr.  Middleton,  had 
meanwhile  avowedly  followed  Carey's  example  by  building 
Bishop's  College,  but  that  was  neither  catholic  nor  in  the 


136  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

centre  of  affairs,  and  has  now  ceased,  like  Serampore 
itself,  to  influence  the  educated  natives.  Not  so  the 
institution  which  bears  the  name  of  the  Duff  College  in 
Calcutta.  What  Henry  Martyn  had  pronounced  to  be  so 
difficult  as  to  amount  to  a  miracle,  what  long  after  Bishop 
Caldwell,^  a  missionary  worthy  of  Carey  and  Duff,  lamented 
as  non-existent  outside  of  Christian  colleges,  Christendom 
saw  and  thanked  God  for  the  sight — Brahman  after 
Brahman  putting  on  the  yoke  of  Christ  by  baptism,  and 
in  turn  becoming,  like  Paul,  the  ordained  preachers  of  the 
faith  which  once  they  had  persecuted  or  contemned,  and 
that  in  Anglican  and  American,  as  well  as  Scots  Presby- 
terian Churches.  The  native  historian  of  the  Church  of 
India,  while  he  records  the  fact  of  the  first  five  of  his 
countrymen  baptized  by  Ziegenbalg  on  the  12th  May 
1807 — "five  adult  heathen  slaves  of  Danish  masters" — 
and  the  names  of  Satiyanadan,  first  ordained  minister  in 
1799,  and  of  Krishna  Pal,  the  carpenter  whom,  in  1800, 
Carey  led  down  into  the  waters  of  the  Ganges,  will  not 
forget  the  Koolin  Brahman,  the  Eev.  Professor  Krishna 
Mohun  Banner jea^  afterwards  honorary  LL.D.  of  the  Cal- 
cutta University,  and  the  Rev.  Gopinath  Nundy,  who 
witnessed  a  good  confession  before  the  Mohammedan  rebels 
of  Allahabad  in  the  darkest  time  of  the  Mutiny  of  1857. 
Mr.  Sherring  records  that  of  the  forty-eight  educated  con- 
verts of  Duff's  mission  in  1871,  nine  were  ministers,  ten 
catechists,  seventeen  professors  and  higher  grade  teachers, 
eight  were  Government  servants  of  the  higher  grade,  and 

^  After  forty-two  years'  experience  in  the  Presidency  of  Madras, 
that  able  missionary  wrote  thus  in  his  protest  against  Reserve  in 
Communicating  Religious  Instruction  to  Non- Christians  in  Mission 
Schools,  in  1879 — "I  have  had  some  experience  in  the  work  of  con- 
version myself,  and  have  tried  in  succession  every  variety  of  method. 
Let  me  mention  then  the  remarkable  fact,  that  during  the  whole  of 
this  long  period  not  one  educated  high-caste  Hindu,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  has  been  converted  to  Christianity  in  connection  with  any 
mission  or  Church,  except  through  the  Christian  education  received 
in  mission  schools.  Such  converts  may  not  be  very  numerous,  and  I 
regret  that  they  are  not,  but  they  are  all  that  aee." 


GREAT  BRITAIN'S   ATTEMPT  137 

four  were  assistant-surgeons  and  doctors.  On  the  other 
side  of  India  Dr,  John  Wilson  was  doing  a  similar  work ; 
in  1839  he  baptized  two  Parsee  students,  "the  first 
proselytes  from  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  in  modern 
times";  of  these  the  Eev.  Dhanjibhai  Naoroji  still  sur- 
vives. 

Up  to  1830,  when  Dr.  Duff  developed  in  Calcutta  the 
system  of  evangelising  by  teaching,  and  by  training  an 
educated  Asiatic  ministry,  the  number  of  native  members 
of  the  various  reformed  communities  in  all  India  and  the 
adjoining  lands  of  Burma  and  Ceylon  did  not  exceed 
27,000.^  The  caste-compromise  of  the  Lutherans  and  the 
restricted  methods  of  the  new  and  then  inexperienced 
English  societies  account  for  this.  Ten  years  after  Duff, 
Wilson,  and  Anderson  had,  in  the  three  great  Presidency 
centres,  linked  evangelical  Christianity  to  truth  and  pro- 
gress of  every  kind  in  the  future  history  of  India,  the 
number  was  57,000.  Twenty  years  after  it  was  127,000. 
The  whole,  number  in  May  1857,  a  hundred  years  after  the 
battle  of  Plassey  had  given  Clive  virtual  supremacy  in 
Bengal  and  all  India,  may  be  taken  at  130,000;  in  1861 
a  careful  census  shows  that  it  was  138,731.  The  Mutiny 
was  provoked  and  used  by  discontented  Hindu  and 
Mohammedan  leaders,  like  Nana  Dhoondopant,  the  ex- 
king  of  Oudh,  and  their. followers,  to  substitute  their  own 
rule  for  that  of  the  British,  under  the  restored  suzerainty 
of  Bahadoor  Shah  as  emperor.  So  far,  in  the  few  districts 
of  North  and  Central  India  which  they  influenced,  the 
movement  may  be  viewed  as  rebellion.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  that  it  was  favoured  by  the  mass  of  the  people, 
or  that  it  was  occasioned  by  any  of  the  timid  and  partial 
reforms  which  culminated  in  1850  in  Lord  Dalhousie's 
legislative  grant  of  toleration  to  converts  from  one  faith 
to  another.  The  mutineers,  and  still  more  the  rabble  of 
the  cities  who  revelled  in  the  chaos,  treated  native 
Christians  as  identified  with  the  governing  class. 

In  the  first  century's  history  of  the  evangelical  conver- 

^  According  to  those  cautious  statists,  the  late  Joseph  Mullens,  D.D., 
and  M.  A.  Sherring,  LL.  B. 


138  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

sion  of  India,  the  Sepoy  Mutiny  of  1857  opened  a  new 
period.  It  tested,  by  persecution,  the  reality  and  the 
character  of  the  faith  of  the  converts.  It  proved  to  be  a 
call  to  the  conscience  of  Christendom. 

The  number  of  white  Christians  known  or  believed  to 
have  been  butchered  by  the  mutineers  and  their  brutal 
agents  was  fifteen  hundred,  of  whom  thirty-seven  were 
missionaries,  chaplains,  and  their  families  at  Delhi,  Sialkot, 
Shahjahanpoor,  Futtehghur,  Futtehpoor,  Muttra,  Goruk- 
poor,  Gwalior,  and  Cawnpore  above  all.  With  them  were 
catechists  like  Wilayat  Ali,  Thakoor,  Dhokul  Parshad, 
Paramanand,  Solomon,  Ramchunder  Mitter,  Jiwan  Masih, 
Eaphael,  Dr.  Chaman  Lai,  and  others  all  done  to  death, 
all  martyrs  of  Christ.  The  Mohammedans  always  and  the 
Hindus  occasionally  offered  such  their  lives  at  the  price  of 
denying  their  Lord.  Not  one  instance  can  be  cited  of 
failure  to  confess  Him  by  men  and  women,  very  often  of 
weak  physique,  and  but  yesterday  of  the  same  faith  as 
their  murderers.^  The  only  known  cases  in  which  life  was 
purchased  by  denial  were  those  of  one  officer  of  mixed 
blood  and  some  band-boys  of  Portuguese  descent  and  re- 
ligious profession.  Happily  the  records  of  the  infant 
Church  of  India  contain  the  narrative  of  a  confessor  who 
survived  the  torture  of  that  time.  Gopinath  Nundy,  third 
of  Duffs  Brahmanical  converts  in  1832,  had  been  given  to 
the  American  Presbyterian  Mission  and  ordained  over  the 
station  of  Futtehpoor.  Sent  off  by  Robert  Tudor  Tucker, 
the  Company's  judge,  who  soon  after  fell  himself  a  martyr 
for  Christ, 2  Gopinath  was  on  his  way  in  charge  of  all  the 
Christian  women  of  the  station  to  Allahabad  Fort,  when 
he  and  his  family  were  seized  by  the  Moulavi  Lyakut  Ali 
after  the  massacre  of  the  European  officers  of  the  Sixth 

1  See  Sherring's  The  Indian  Church  during  the  Rebellion,  2nd  ed. 
1859,  and  Duffs  The  Indian  Rebellion :  its  Causes  and  Results,  2nd 
ed.  1858. 

2  See  Sir  John  Kaye's  History  of  the  Sepoy  War  in  India,  vol.  ii.  p. 
363.  R.  T.  Tucker  was  brother  of  the  well-known  Commissioner  of 
Benares  and  uncle  of  A.  L.  0.  E.,  still  the  devoted  Christian  missionary 
lady  and  writer  in  the  Punjab. 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  139 

Native  Infantry.  The  Moulavi  had  set  up  the  green 
standard  of  the  titular  Emperor  of  Delhi  in  the  garden 
known  as  Khusroo  Bagh,  while  the  Christian  refugees 
were  shut  up  in  the  fort  and  the  city  raged  with  sedition. 
The  Bengali  missionary  and  his  wife  thus  confessed  Christ 
before  the  bloodthirsty  Mohammedan  : — 

•'When  we  were  brougM  before  Mm,  we  found  him  seated  on  a 
chair,  surrounded  by  men  with  drawn  swords.     We  made  our  salaams  ; 
upon  which  he  ordered  us  to  sit  down,  and  put  to  us  the  following 
questions:    'Who  are  you?'     'Christians.'     'What  place   do  you 
come    from  «  '      '  Futtehpore.'       '  What    was    your    occupation  ? ' 
'Preaching    and    teaching    the    Christian    religion.'      'Are    you    a 
padre?'     'Yes,  sir.'     *Was  it  not  you  who  used  to  go  about  read- 
ing and  distributing  tracts  in  the  streets  and  villages  ? '     '  Yes,  sir  ; 
it  was    I    and    my   catechists.'     'How  many   Christians  have  you 
made  ? '     '  I  did  not  make  any  Christians,  for  no  human  being  can 
change  the  heart  of  another  ;   but  God,  through  my  instrumentality, 
brought  to  the  belief  of  His  true  religion  about  a  couple  of  dozens.' 
On  this  the  man   exclaimed,   in   a  great  rage,  and  said,  '  Tauba  ! 
tauba  !  (repent).     What  downright  blasphemy  !      God  never  makes 
any  one  a  Christian  ;  but  you  Kafirs  pervert  the  people.     He  always 
makes  people   Musalmaus  ;   for  the  religion  which  we  follow  is  the 
only  true  one.      How  many  Mohammedans  have  you  perverted  to 
your  religion  ? '     'I  have  not  perverted  any  one,  but,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  ten  were  turned  from  darkness  to  the  glorious  light  of  the 
gospel.'     Hearing  this,  the  man's  countenance  became  as  red  as  fire  ; 
and  he  exclaimed,  'You  are  a  great  "haramzadah"  (traitor  to  your 
salt)  !  you  have  renounced  your  forefathers'  faith,  and  become  a  child 
of  Satan,  and  now  use  your  every  effort  to  bring  others  into  the  same 
road  of  destruction.     You  deserve  a  cruel  death.     Your  nose,  ears, 
and  hands  should  be  cut  off  at  different  times,  so  as  to  make  your 
sufferings  continue  for  some  time;  and  your  children  ought  to  be 
taken  into  slavery.'     Upon  this,  Mrs.  Nundy,  folding  her  hands,  said 
to  the  Moulavi,  '  You  will  confer  a  very  great  favour  by  ordering  us 
all  to  be  killed  at  once,  and  not  to  be  tortured  by  a  lingering  death.' 
After  keeping  silent  for  a  while,  he  exclaimed,  '  Subhan  Allah,  you 
appear  to  be  a  respectable  man.     I  pity  you  and  your  family  ;  and,  as 
a  friend,  I  advise  you  to  become  Mohammedans :  by  doing  so,  you 
will  not  only  save  your  lives,  but  will  be  raised  to  a  high  rank.'     My 
answer  was,  'We  prefer  death  to  any  inducement  you  can  hold  out' 
The  man  then  appealed  to  my  wife,  and  asked  her  what  she  would 
do.     Her  answer  was,  thank  God,  as  firm  as  mine.     She  said  she 


140  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

was  ready  to  submit  to  any  punishment  lie  could  inflict,  but  she 
would  not  renounce  her  faith.  The  JMoulavi  then  asked  if  I  had  read 
the  Koran.  My  answer  was,  *  Yes,  sir.'  He  then  said,  'You  could 
not  have  read  it  with  a  view  to  be  profited,  but  simply  to  pick  out 
passages  in  order  to  argue  with  Mohammedans.'  Moreover  he  said, 
'  I  will  allow  you  three  days  to  consider,  and  then  I  will  send  for  you 
and  read  a  portion  of  the  Koran  to  you.  If  you  believe,  and  become 
Mohammedans,  well  and  good  ;  but  if  not,  your  noses  shall  be  cut 
off.'  We  again  begged  and  said  to  him,  that  what  he  intended  to  do 
had  better  be  done  at  once,  for  as  long  as  God  continued  His  grace 
we  would  never  change  our  faith.  He  then  ordered  his  men  to  take 
us  into  custody. 

"While  on  the  way  to  the  prison  I  raised  my  heart  in  praise  and 
adoration  to  the  Lord  Jesus,  for  giving  us  grace  to  stand  firm  and  to 
acknowledge  Him  before  the  world.  When  we  reached  the  place  of 
our  imprisonment,  which  was  a  part  of  the  Serai,  where  travellers 
put  up  for  the  night  and  where  his  soldiers  were  quartered,  we 
found  there  a  European  family  and  some  native  Christians.  We  felt 
extremely  sorry  at  seeing  them  in  the  same  difficulty  with  ourselves. 
After  conversing  together,  and  relating  each  other's  distress,  I  asked 
them  to  join  us  in  prayer,  to  which  they  readily  consented.  While 
we  knelt  down  and  prayed,  one  of  the  guards  came,  and,  giving  me  a 
kick  on  the  back,  ordered  me  either  to  pray  after  the  Mohammedan 
form  or  to  hold  my  tongue. 

"The  next  day,  Ensign  Cheek,  an  oflScer  of  the  late  6th  N.  I., 
was  brought  in  as  a  prisoner.  He  was  so  severely  wounded  that  he 
was  scarcely  able  to  stand  on  his  legs,  but  was  on  the  point  of  faint- 
ing. I  made  some  gruel  of  the  suttoo  (flour)  and  goor  (sugar)  which 
we  brought  with  us,  and  some  of  which  was  still  left,  and  gave  him 
to  drink ;  also  a  potful  of  water.  Drinking  this,  he  felt  refreshed, 
and  opened  his  eyes.  Seeing  me,  a  fellow-prisoner  and  minister  of 
the  gospel,  he  related  the  history  of  his  suff"erings,  and  asked  me,  if  I 
escaped  in  safety,  to  write  to  his  mother  in  England,  and  to  his  aunt 
at  Bancoorah  ;  which  I  have  since  done.  As  the  poor  man  was 
unable  to  lie  down  on  the  bare  hard  ground,  for  that  was  all  that  was 
allotted  to  us,  I  begged  the  darogah  (constable)  to  give  him  a 
charpoy  (truckle-bed).  With  great  difficulty  he  consented  to  supply 
one  ;  and  that  was  a  broken  one.  Finding  me  so  kindly  disposed  to 
poor  Cheek,  the  darogah  fastened  my  feet  in  the  stocks,  and  thus 
caused  a  separation,  not  only  from  him,  but  also  from  my  poor  family. 
While  this  was  going  on,  a  large  body  of  armed  men  fell  upon  me, 
holding  forth  the  promise  of  immediate  release  if  I  became  a  Moham- 
medan.     At  that  time  Ensign  Cheek  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  and 


GREAT  BRITAIN'S  ATTEMPT  141 

said,  '  Padre,  padre,  be  firm ;  do  not  give  way.'  My  poor  wife,  not 
willing  to  be  separated,  was  dragged  away  by  her  hair,  and  received  a 
severe  wound  in  her  forehead.  The  third  day,  the  day  appointed  for 
our  final  execution,  now  came,  and  we  expected  every  moment  to  be 
sent  for  to  finish  our  earthly  course  ;  but  the  Moulavi  did  not  do  so. 
Every  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  some  one  of  his  people  would  come  and 
try  to  convert  us,  threatening,  in  case  of  refusal,  to  cut  oflF  our  noses. 
It  appeared  that  the  cutting  off  of  noses  was  a  favourite  pastime  with 
them. 

' '  On  the  sixth  day  the  Moulavi  himself  came  over  into  the  prison, 
and  inquired  Avhere  the  padre  prisoner  was.  "When  I  was  pointed 
out,  he  asked  me  if  I  was  comfortable.  My  answer  was,  *  How  can  I 
be  comfortable,  whilst  my  feet  are  fastened  in  the  stocks  ?  however,  I 
am  not  sorry,  hecause  such  has  been  the  will  of  my  heavenly  Father.' 
I  then  asked  him,  '  How  he  could  be  so  cruel  as  not  to  allow  a  drop 
of  milk  to  a  poor  innocent  baby  ? '  for  our  little  one  lived  principally 
upon  water  those  six  days.  The  same  day,  the  European  and  Sikh 
soldiers  came  out  under  Lieutenant  Brasyer,  and  after  a  desperate 
fight,  completely  routed  the  enemy.  Several  dead  and  wounded  were 
brought  where  we  were,  as  that  was  his  headquarters.  The  sight  of 
these  convinced  us  that  the  enemies  would  take  to  their  heels.  They 
gradually  began  to  disperse,  and  by  the  following  morning  not  one 
remained.  "We  then  broke  the  stocks,  liberated  ourselves,  and  came 
into  the  fort  to  our  friends,  who  were  rejoiced  to  see  us  once  more  in 
the  land  of  the  living.  Ensign  Cheek  died  the  same  day  after 
reaching  the  fort.  His  wounds  were  so  severe  and  so  numerous,  that 
it  was  a  wonder  how  he  lived  so  many  days,  without  any  food  or  even  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  water  to  quench  his  burning  thirst.  It  must  be 
a  great  consolation  to  his  friends  to  hear  that  he  died  in  the  Fort  and 
received  Christian  burial.  I  had  not  sufficient  conversation  with 
him  to  know  the  real  state  of  his  mind  ;  but  the  few  words  he 
expressed,  at  the  time  when  the  villains  fastened  my  feet  in  the 
stocks,  led  me  to  believe  that  he  died  a  Christian,  and  is  now  in  the 
enjoyment  of  everlasting  rest  in  heaven. 

"  Other  dear  English  and  native  Christians  were  in  similar  dangers 
and  trials,  but  many  if  not  all  were  massacred  ;  yet  we  are  still  in  the 
land  of  the  living.  The  manifestation  of  God's  grace  to  us  at  the 
time  we  needed  it  most  was  infinite.  It  was  nothing  but  His  grace 
alone  that  kept  us  firm.  The  enemy  tried  his  utmost  to  throw  us 
down.  He  put  forth,  on  the  one  hand,  all  the  worldly  inducements  a 
jjerson  can  conceive,  if  we  renounced  our  faith  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  brought  before  us  a  sure  death,  with  all  the  cnielties  a  barbarous 
jnan  could  think  of,  if  we  did  not  become  Mohammedans.     But 


142  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

thank  God,  we  chose  the  latter.  The  sweet  words  of  our  blessed 
Saviour,  which  are  recorded  in  the  18th,  19th,  and  20th  verses  of  the 
10th  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  were  strikingly  fulfilled  in  our  case  : 
*  And  ye  shall  be  brought  before  governors  and  kings  for  My  sake,  for 
a  testimony  against  them  and  the  Gentiles.  But  when  they  deliver 
you  up,  take  no  thought  how  or  what  ye  shall  speak  :  for  it  shall  be 
given  you  in  that  same  hour  what  ye  shall  speak.  For  it  is  not  ye 
that  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your  Father  which  speaketh  in  you.' 
When  the  Moulavi  failed  by  arguments,  threats,  etc.,  in  bringing  me 
to  renounce  my  faith,  he  appealed  to  my  wife ;  but  she  too,  thank 
God,  was  ready  to  give  up  her  life  rather  than  become  a  follower  of  the 
false  prophet.  When  she  saw  the  Moulavi  was  in  a  great  rage,  and 
was  ready  to  order  us  to  be  tortured,  by  taking  off  our  noses  or  ears, 
she  began  to  instruct  the  twin  boys — 'You,  my  children,  will  be 
taken  and  kept  as  slaves,  while  we  shall  be  killed  ;  but  remember  my 
last  words,  do  not  forget  to  say  your  prayers  both  morning  and 
evening,  and  as  soon  as  you  see  the  English  power  re-established, 
which  will  be  before  long,  fly  over  to  them,  and  relate  to  them  every- 
thing that  has  befallen  us.*  '  For  He  said.  Surely  they  are  My 
people,  children  that  will  not  lie  :  so  He  was  their  Saviour.  In  all 
their  affliction  He  was  afflicted,  and  the  angel  of  His  presence  saved 
them :  in  His  love  and  in  His  pity  He  redeemed  them '  (Isa. 
Ixiii.  8,  9)." 

"When  by  1858  the  campaigns  and  sieges  of  Havelock 
and  Outram,  Nicholson  and  Baird  Smith,  Colin  Campbell 
and  Hugh  Eose  had  restored  order  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Jumna  and  the  Upper  Ganges  and  in  Central  India,  the 
Christians  of  Great  Britain  and  America  were  touched 
with  their  Lord's  Spirit  when  He  said  of  His  murderers, 
"Father,  forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  do." 
The  contemporary  literature  of  those  years,  letters, 
journals,  and  biographies,  from  the  Prince  Consort's  Life 
to  the  columns  of  the  daily  newspapers,  remind  the 
reader  of  "  the  great  cry  ...  for  there  was  not  a  house 
where  there  was  not  one  dead,"  as  mail  after  mail  carried 
the  news  of  cruel  massacre  and  bloody  conflict.  The  East 
India  Company's  government  of  India  was  passing — pass- 
ing away — through  the  fire.  The  British  Empire  of  India 
thus  brought  to  the  birth,  was  being  baptized  in  blood. 
Had  not  the  time  begun  to  come  to  the  millions  of  India, 
of  which  the  Jewish  seer  spoke  while  yet  in  732   B.C. 


GREAT  Britain's  attempt  143 

their  Aryan  fathers  were  descending  on  its  Punjab  plains, 
and  ours  were  savages  in  the  woods  of  the  melancholy 
^Yest  ? — "  The  people  that  walked  in  darkness  have  seen  a  great 
light.  .  .  .  For  all  the  armour  of  the  armed  man  in  the  tumult, 
and  the  garments  rolled  in  Mood,  shall  even  he  for  hurning,  for 
fuel  of  five.  For  unto  us  a  child  is  hmm,  unto  us  a  son  is 
given  ;  and  the  government  shall  be  upon  His  shoulder.  .  .  .  Of 
the  increase  of  His  government  and  of  peace  there  shall  he  no 
end."  1  The  history  of  Christian  India  began  in  the  year 
1858;  all  before  was  for  that  a  preparation.  India,  too, 
is  to  receive  the  Messiah,  not  in  name  only — as  its  early 
converts  rejoice  to  do,  so  proclaiming  themselves  His  slaves 
and  no  longer  Mohammed's  or  Shiva's — but  in  power  and 
with  righteousness  for  ever.  The  zeal  of  the  Lord  of  hosts 
shall  perform  this. 

The  Churches  and  Societies  of  England  and  Wales,  of 
Scotland  and  Ireland,  of  the  United  States  of  America 
and  Canada,  even  of  Germany,  Denmark,  and  Sweden, 
confessed  with  shame  how  little  they  had  done  for  the 
only  part  of  the  continent  of  Asia  where  every  door  was 
open,  where  toleration  was  complete,  where  even  the  con- 
vert from  Islam  was  protected.  While  the  older  organisa- 
tions showed  fresh  life,  new  and  catholic  agencies  were 
established,  notably  that  which  is  now  termed  the  Christian 
Literature  Society  for  India,  founded  as  a  loving  memorial 
of  forgiveness,  to  propagate  Christian  literature  and  train 
native  Christian  teachers.  Duff  directed  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  of  America  to  the  vast  districts  of 
Oudh  and  Eohilkhund,  until  the  Mutiny  uncared  for. 
Wilson,  who  had  sent  the  Irish  Presbyterian  Church 
to  the  native  states  of  Kathiawar  and  North  Bombay, 
now  despatched  Dr.  Shoolbred  and  the  missionaries  of  the 
United  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland — till  that  time 
confined  to  the  negroes  —  to  the  vast  group  of  native 
states,  Mohammedan  and  Hindu,  with  aboriginal  tribes, 
which  form  Rajpootana.  The  Moravian  Unity  of  the 
Brethren,  the  Society  of  Friends,  the  Original  Secession 

^  Isaiah  ix.  2,  5,  G,  7  (revised  version).  See  "The  Book  of  Isaiah" 
in  The  Expositor's  Bible,  voL  i.  chapter  vii. 


144  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

Church  of  Scotland,  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Canada, 
many  an  isolated  or  independent  mission  seeking  to  do 
simply  on  a  smaller  scale  the  will  of  God  towards  the 
people  of  India,  settled  in  British  districts  and  native 
states  before  neglected.  As  the  Eastern  Empire  of  Great 
Britain  extended,  through  the  second  Afghan  and  Burmese 
Wars,  the  evangelical  missionary  followed  the  British  flag 
which,  in  some  cases  on  the  Punjab  frontier,  only  military 
force  had  kept  him  from  preceding  in  his  zeal  to  proclaim 
the  gospel  of  peace  to  the  regions  beyond.  The  medical 
missionary,  Dr.  Downes,  was  brought  back  from  Kafristan ; 
the  pilgrim  missionary  of  the  Punjab,  Maxwell  Gordon, 
died  as  a  volunteer  chaplain  outside  the  gates  of  Kandahar. 
We  shall  see  how  the  missionaries  of  Reformed  Christen- 
dom to  the  three  hundred  millions  of  Southern  Asia  under 
British  protection  have  increased  fourfold  in  the  last 
forty  years.  Yet  how  miserably  small  is  their  number 
—  seventeen  hundred  —  at  the  opening  of  the  second 
century  of  India's  evangelisation  !  But  from  Buddhist 
Mandalay  on  the  far  north-east,  where  Britain  marches 
with  China,  right  west  for  two  thousand  miles  to  Moham- 
medan Quetta  between  Afghanistan  and  Persia,  and  from 
that  lofty  base-line  down  on  either  side  of  the  great 
Hindu  Peninsula  to  Cape  Comorin,  the  land  has  been  for 
the  first  time  taken  possession  of  for  Jesus  Christ,  and 
only  the  little  faith  of  every  Christian  delays  the  coming 
conversion  of  India. 


yn 

THE  UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICANS   CO-OPERATION 

"  Whether  any  do  enquire  of  Titus,  he  is  my  partner  and  felloxo-helper 
concerning  you;  or  our  brethren,  they  are  the  messengers  of  the  churches, 
and  the  glory  of  Christ.'"— 2  Cor.  viii.  23. 

The  foreign  politics  of  the  United  States  of  America 
are  Foreign  Missions.  Starting  into  national  life,  free  alike 
from  the  ecclesiastical  bonds,  the  feudal  institutions,  and 
the  political  interests  of  Europe,  but  possessing  the  full 
heritage  of  British  history,  literature,  and  character,  the 
Americans  were  from  the  first  prepared  to  become  the 
chief  messengers  of  Christ  to  the  human  race.  In  four 
hundred  years  they  have,  by  Christian  colonisation  and 
home  missions,  evangelised  their  o^vn  continent  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  bringing  into  the  Church 
the  remnant  of  the  Eed  Indian  tribes,  and  giving  to 
Christendom  its  "  richest  acquisition  "  in  sixty-five  millions 
of  Christian  citizens,  whom  every  year  increases  in  num- 
ber and  influence.  In  the  whole  development  of  mankind 
during  six  thousand  years  there  has  been  only  one  people 
and  one  land  ready  made,  as  it  were,  to  be  itself  free,  and 
to  all  beside  the  apostle  of  liberty  in  its  highest  form — 
the  freedom  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 

The  first  duty  of  the  Christians  who  sought  liberty  of 
conscience  and  the  profits  of  commerce  at  Manhattan 
Island,  Plymouth  Pock,  and  the  various  colonies,  was  to 
the  natives.     The  Dutch  West  India  Company,  attracted 

L 


146  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

by  the  furs  of  the  New  World,  as  their  East  India  Company 
had  been  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  by  the  pepper  of 
Malabar  and  the  spices  of  Malaysia,  received  its  charter  in 
1621.^  Eight  years  after  Jonas  Michaelius  organised  the 
first  reformed  congregation  on  the  continent  of  North 
America.  In  his  letter  "  from  the  island  of  JNIanhatas,  in 
New  Netherland,  this  eleventh  August,  Anno  1628," 
he  pictures  the  "  entirely  savage  and  wild  "  character  and 
customs  of  the  Eed  Indians,  and  arrives  at  this  conclusion, 
"  Let  us,  then,  .  .  .  begin  with  the  children  who  are  still 
young."  He  would  instruct  them  "  not  only  to  speak,  read, 
and  write  in  our  language,  but  also  especially  in  the  funda- 
mentals of  our  Christian  religion.  .  .  .  But  they  must 
speak  their  native  tongue  ...  as  being  evidently  a  prin- 
cipal means  of  spreading  the  knowledge  of  religion  through 
the  whole  nation.  In  the  meantime  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
to  pray  to  the  end  with  ardent  and  continual  prayers  for  His 
blessing.  .  .  .  May  God  have  mercy  upon  them  finally  that 
the  fulness  of  the  heathen  may  be  gradually  accomplished." 
In  the  fifty-five  years  during  which  the  Dutch  Com- 
pany held  the  territory  which  they  named  New  Nether- 
lands, from  the  Connecticut  River  to  the  Delaware, 
many  pastors  preached  the  gospel  to  the  red  man.  But 
the  only  name  beside  that  of  the  good  Michaelius,  who 
returned  to  Holland  in  1633,  is  that  of  Van  Mekelenburg, 
better  known  in  its  Hellenized  form,  Megapolensis.  In 
]  643  he  began  near  the  present  city  of  Albany  his  mission 
to  the  Mohawks,  Avhose  language  he  spoke  with  eloquence, 
and  he  received  many  of  them  into  the  fellowship  of  the 
Church.  He  used  his  influence  with  the  red  tribes  to  save 
more  than  one  Jesuit  from  torture  and  death.  He  was 
the  counsellor  who  advised  the  surrender  to  the  English 
in  1664  to  prevent  effusion  of  blood — that  decisive  act 
which  proved  a  turning-point  in  history.^ 

1  See  Bryce's  American  Commonwealth,  vol.  iii.  p.  497,  for  a  view 
of  the  religious  superiority  of  America,  which,  however,  does  not 
mention  the  foreign  missionary  aspect,  but  generalises  "works  of 
active  beneficence," 

2  Joannes  Megapolensis  thereafter  returned  to  Holland,  with  his 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA'S  CO-OPERATION         147 

John  Robinson,  from  his  refuge  at  Leyden,  had  offered 
to  take  four  hundred  Puritan  families  to  the  New  Nether- 
lands, but  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  landed  at  New  England  in 
1620.  If  trade,  rather  than  freedom  to  worship  God 
which  they  had  secured  for  themselves  and  others,  was  the 
first  object  of  the  Dutch  settlements,  the  Puritans  who 
found  a  home  at  Leyden  around  the  cultured  and  devoted 
Robinson,  were  missionaries.  They  took  back  with  them 
Squanto,  the  only  survivor  of  the  twenty  Indians  whom 
Hunt  had  six  years  before  perfidiously  carried  to  Spain, 
whence  he  found  his  way  to  London.  Then  it  was  that 
our  forefathers  used  to  sing  a  missionary  hymn  with  these 
words, 

Dark  America  convert. 

And  every  pagan  land. 

In  1631  the  great  "missionary  of  the  Puritans,  John  Eliot, 

landed  at  Boston,  a  year  after  the  foundation  of  the  city, 
and  became  minister  of  its  Roxbury  suburb.  He  learned 
the  Mohican  language;  in  1660  he  formed  his  converts 
into  a  Church  at  Natick  on  the  Charles  River,  and  the  year 
after  began  to  print  at  Cambridge  his  translation  of  the 
Bible  and  other  works.  The  illustrious  Harvard  Univer- 
sity there  really  originated  in  his  college  to  train  native 
pastors  and  teachers. 

AYhat  Holland  began  and  England  continued  was  fol- 
lowed up  by  Scotland  till  the  United  States  started  on  their 

medical  missionary  son,  Samuel.  His  account  of  the  Mohawk  Indians, 
written  in  1644,  is  translated  in  Hazard's  State  Papers.  His  Dutch 
epitaph  is  thus  translated  in  Dr.  E.  T.  Corwiu's  Manual  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  in  America  : — 

"  New  Netherlander,  weep, 

Check  not  the  gushing  tear, 
In  perfect  shape  doth  sleep 

Megapolensis  here. 
New  Netherland's  great  treasure, 

His  never-tiring  work 
"Was  day  and  night  to  pray, 

And  zeal  in  the  Church  exert. 
Now  let  him  rest  where  may, 

He  scorn  all  worldly  pleasure." 


148  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

separate  career.  In  1641  the  John  Knox  of  his  day, 
Alexander  Henderson,  and  five  other  Scots  ministers, 
signed  the  petition  of  William  Castell,  "  parson  of  Cour- 
teenhall,"  in  Northamptonshire,  which,  vnth  the  "  Eliot 
Tracts,"  led  Cromwell  and  the  Long  Parliament  to  create 
the  still- existing  Corporation  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  New  England.  In  1645  "The  Directory  for 
the  Publick  Worship  of  God,"  adopted  by  the  General 
Assembly,  instructs  ministers  and  people  "  to  pray  for  the 
propagation  of  the  gospel  and  kingdom  of  Christ  to  all 
nations."  Yet,  like  all  other  Confessions  of  Faith  and 
Catechisms,  those  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  do  not 
allude  to  the  Church's  duty  to  heathen,  Mohammedans, 
and  Jews.  But  in  1672  there  appeared  one  of  the  least 
known,  though  most  excellent,  works  of  Dr.  John  Owen, 
his  "  Discourse  concerning  Evangelical  Love,  Church  Peace 
and  Unity,"  ^  in  which  he  more  fully  states  and  enforces 
the  duty  of  Christendom  "  towards  the  infidel,  pagan,  and 
Mohammedan  world,  Jews  and  Gentiles." 

The  first  attempt  of  Scotland,  as  such,  to  send  mission- 
aries to  the  heathen  was  in  1699  and  1700,  when  two 
successive  General  Assemblies  enjoined  the  ministers  who 
formed  part  of  the  unhappy  Darien  expedition  to  labour 
among  the  natives  of  America.  "  The  Lord,  we  hope, 
will  yet  honour  jou,  and  this  Church  from  which  you  are 
sent,  to  carry  his  name  among  the  heathen."  Michael 
Shields,  friend  of  Eenwick,  the  last  Scottish  martyr,  was 
one  of  these  ministers,  and  may  be  called  the  first  foreign 
missionary  from  Scotland,  after  the  Scoto-Irish.  "  Whether 
he  died  in  the  wilds  of  Caledonia,  on  the  sea,  in  Jamaica, 
or  at  Charleston  bar  in  Carolina,  we  know  not,  but  he 
never  returned,"  is  the  record  of  the  editor  of  his  Faith- 
ful Contendings  Displayed.  With  this  the  action  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  as  a  Church,  ceased  till  1825,  and  its 
godly  members  joined  with  others  in  missionary  societies. 

In  1701,  some  private  gentlemen  who  used  to  meet  in 
Edinburgh  "  for  reformation  of  manners,  reflecting  on  the 

^  See  pp.  71-73  of  vol.  xv.  of  his  AVorks,  edited  by  Rev.  Dr.  W. 
H.  Goold,  1851. 


UNITED  STATES  OF  A^IERICA'S  CO-OrERATION         149 

ignorance,  atheism,  popery,  and  impiety  that  did  so  much 
abound  in  the  Highlands  and  Isles  of  Scotland,  did  justly 
reckon  that  they  flowed  in  a  great  measure  from  want  of 
suitable  means  of  instruction,"  whence  the  foundation  of  the 
Society  in  Scotland  for  Propagating  Christian  Knowledge. 
In  1706  they  applied  to  the  General  Assembly  for  aid, 
and  received  a  national  collection.  In  1709  they  obtained 
a  charter,  and  82  leading  Presbyterians  were  chosen 
members.  To  this  society  Dr.  Daniel  Williams,  founder 
of  the  Williams  Library  of  London,  left  several  legacies 
for  foreign  missions,  among  them  an  estate  yielding  £50 
a  year,  to  be  paid  "  a  twelvemonth  after  the  Society  have 
actually  sent  three  missionaries  to  foreign  parts."  Accord- 
ingly, in  1741,  John  Sargent  was  sent  to  the  Eed  Indians 
on  the  Housatonic;  in  1742,  Azariah  Horton  to  the  same 
on  Long  Island;  in  1743,  David  Brainerd  to  the  same  on 
Delaware  and  Susquehannah ;  in  1748  John  succeeded 
David^  Brainerd ;— all  through  the  Synod  of  New  York, 
who,  in  1751,  enjoined  "all  their  members  to  appoint  a 
collection  in  their  several  congregations  once  every  year  " 
— their  beginning  of  foreign  missions.  In  1757  the 
Scottish  Society  bought  land  in  South  New  Jersey,  called 
the  Brotherston  tract,  for  an  Indian  reserve. 

In  1774  the  Synod  of  New  York  asked  the  Society  to 
send  two  natives  of  Africa  who  had  been  converted  to 
Christ  "  on  a  mission  to  propagate  Christianity  in  their 
native  country."  The  negroes  w^ere  trained  in  the  college 
of  New  Jersey  for  the  coast  of  Guinea.  The  war  of  the 
American  Eevolution  prevented  this.  In  1771  the  first 
Red  Indian  minister  who  visited  Great  Britain,  Samson 
Occom,  raised  £10,000  for  the  Indian  school  of  Mr. 
Wheelock  of  Lebanon,  Connecticut,  among  the  Oneida 
Indians.  His  visit  caused  great  interest.  Of  the  above 
sum  .£2000  was  raised  in  Scotland,  and  invested  by  the 
Scottish  Society  at  5  per  cent.  The  Foreign  Mission 
funds  seem  to  be  spent  by  this  Society,  now  reorganised,  on 
the  Blantyre  Mission  of  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland 
in  East  Central  Africa. 

In  1744,  under   the   influence  of  Whitefield  and  the 


150  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

revivals,  several  ministers  in  the  west  of  Scotland  united 
to  form  that  Prayer  Concert  "that  our  God's  kingdom 
may  come,"  which,  as  commended  by  Jonathan  Edwards 
in  New  England,  prepared  William  Carey  and  his  contem- 
poraries for  the  formation  of  the  first  English  Missionary 
Society  in  1792.  Following  that  came  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  now  preparing  to  hold  its  centenary. 

Members  of  the  various  Presbyterian  Churches  in  the 
United  States,  encouraged  by  the  success  of  the  movement 
in  London,  and  not  then  ready  any  more  than  the  Church 
of  Scotland  to  use  the  Church  as  a  missionary  organisa- 
tion, founded  in  1796  the  New  York  Missionary  Society, 
which  in  1818  became  merged  in  the  United  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  composed  of  the  Presbyterian,  Re- 
formed Dutch,  and  Associate  Reformed  Churches.  The 
object,  no  longer  confined  to  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  covered  "Mexico,  South  America,  and  other 
portions  of  the  heathen  and  anti christian  world."  Presi- 
dent Monroe  ^  used  the  new  society  as  the  State  almoner 
for  the  civilisation  of  the  Indians.  The  work  was  practi- 
cally confined  to  what  is  now  happily  regarded  as  a  Home 
Mission  of  the  American  Churches,  when  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions.  The 
Synod  of  Pittsburgh,  which  had  always  been  foremost  in 
missionary  zeal,  in  1831  formed  the  Western  Missionary 
Society,  which  became  merged  six  years  after  in  the  great 
Board  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  This  society  it  was 
which  first  led  the  Presbyterians  of  America  to  seek  the 
conversion  of  India,  while  caring  for  the  negroes  of  what  is 
now  Liberia,  and  the  first  to  look  "  eventually  "  to  Central 
Africa  as  a  principal  field  of  its  intended  operations. 

In  May  1834  John  C.  Lowrie  and  William  Reed  sailed 
in  the  "  Star "  from  Philadelphia,  and  in  due  time  the 
former  founded  the  famous  Lodiana  Mission.  It  was  a 
momentous  step,  full  of  hope  for  the  future  of  India  and 
Central  Asia.  John  Lowrie,  followed  by  John  Newton, 
first  opened  up  to  the  gospel  of  Christ  the  Punjab,  its 

1  See  Dr.  AsLibel  Green's  Historical  Sketch  of  Domestic  ami  Foreign 
Missions  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  U.S.A.     Philadelphia,  1838. 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA'S  CO-OPERATION         151 

Sikhs  and  Mohammedans.  The  Free  Church  of  Scotland 
had  been  urged  to  open  a  mission  at  Lahore  when  it 
became  a  British  capital,  but  Dr.  Duff  followed  the  more 
catholic  course  of  giving  the  American  Mission  such 
ordained  converts  as  Gopinath  Nundy  and  Goluk  Nath, 
of  the  latter  of  whom  he  wrote  in  1848  : — "Through  him 
our  Institution  is  diffusing  the  light  of  the  gospel  among 
the  warlike  Sikhs,  who  so  lately  contested  the  sovereignty 
of  India  with  Britain."  The  successors  of  these  pioneers 
have  proved  worthy  of  them  in  the  prayerful  zeal  and  the 
far-seeing  energy  with  which  they  have  followed  up  the 
wars  and  annexations  of  the  British  Government,  and  in  the 
apostolic  charity  with  which  they  have  invited  and  co- 
operated with  the  Anglicans  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society.  Associated  with  Dr.  Lowrie  was  the  Rev.  James 
R.  Campbell  of  the  Reformed  Presbyterian  Chiu-ch  of 
America.  Allahabad,  and  the  region  of  North  India  be- 
tween that  and  the  frontier  at  Peshawur,  became  remarkable 
for  the  labours  of  saints  and  scholars  like  Owen  and  Walsh, 
Janvier  and  Loewenthal,  Morrison  and  Forman. 

We  have  not  yet  named  the  greatest  of  all  American 
missionaries,  that  we  might  trace  the  course  of  the  Presby- 
terian occupation  of  the  Punjab  and  Hindustan.  Adoniram 
Judson  is  surpassed  by  no  missionary  since  the  apostle 
Paul  in  self-devotion  and  scholarship,  in  labours  and  perils, 
in  saintliness  and  humility,  in  the  result  of  his  toils  on  the 
future  of  an  empire  and  its  multitudinous  peoples.  He 
took  possession  of  Burma  for  Christ  when  only  a  strip  of 
its  coast  had  become  the  nucleus  of  the  eastern  half  of  the 
British  Empire  of  India ;  and  he  inspired  his  native 
country  to  found  two  great  missionary  societies. 

Samuel  John  Mills,  born  in  the  year  of  the  independ- 
ence of  his  country,  and  consecrated  by  his  mother  to  the 
service  of  God  as  a  missionary,  when  at  Williams'  College, 
Massachusetts,  gathered  together  his  fellow-students  behind 
a  haystack  daily  to  pray  for  self-smTender  to  the  Lord's 
call  to  go  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  At  Yale 
University  he  continued  the  propaganda.  At  the  Theo- 
logical College  of  Andover  he  met  with  Judson.     There, 


152  THE   CONVERSION    OF   INDIA 

in  1810,  Judson  drew  up  the  memorial,  signed  by  himself, 
Mills,  Nott,  and  Newell,  asking  the  General  Association 
of  Massachusetts  "whether  they  may  expect  patronage 
and  support  from  a  missionary  society  in  this  country,  or 
must  commit  themselves  to  the  direction  of  a  European 
society."  The  result  was  the  formation  of  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions  in  1812. 
Mills  found  his  career  and  early  death  on  the  west  coast 
of  Africa.  Judson,  becoming  a  Baptist  on  the  voyage  to 
India,  was  sent  by  William  Carey  to  Burma,  with  the  con- 
sequent establishment  of  the  American  Baptist  Missionary 
Union  in  1814. 

During  two  of  the  thirty-seven  years  of  Judson's 
apostolate  in  Burma,  1844  and  1845,  he  enjoyed  the  friend- 
ship and  help  of  the  British  Commissioner  of  Tenasserim. 
That  was  Captain  Durand  of  the  Bengal  Engineers,  a  scion 
of  the  Dukes  of  Northumberland,  who  had  sailed  and  been 
ship^vrecked  along  with  Dr.  Duff  off  Dassen  Island,  and 
had  been  private  secretary  of  the  Governor-General,  Lord 
Ellenborough.  After  learning  to  love  Judson  as  he  all  his 
life  admired  Duff,  Durand  became  one  of  the  heroes  of  the 
first  Afghan  campaign.  The  close  of  the  Mutiny  saw  him 
successively  one  of  the  first  members  of  the  Council  of 
India,  foreign  secretary,  member  of  the  Governor-General's 
Council,  and  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Punjab,  where  an 
accident,  all  too  soon  for  the  empire,  ended  the  stainless 
and  chivalrous  career  of  the  Christian  soldier,  Major- 
General  Sir  Henry  Marion  Durand,  K.C.S.L,  C.B.  It  is 
such  a  man  who  wrote  the  first  and  noblest,  if  the  briefest, 
biography  of  Adoniram  Judson,^  and  impassioned  but 
discriminating  sketches  of  Ann  Hasseltine  and  Sarah 
Judson,  whom  also  he  knew.  The  foe  against  which 
Judson  equipped  himself  with  the  panoply  of  God  was 
Buddhism,  professed  at  the  present  day  by  seven  millions 
out  of  the  eight  who  occupy  the  now  British  province, 
which  in  its  independence  he  influenced  from  Moulmein 
to  Ava.     In  the  foul  prison  of  that  capital  he  lay  for  nine- 

1  In  the  Calcutta  Review  for  1850,  tlien  edited  by  Dr.  Duff.  The 
article  is  reprinted  by  his  son  in  vol.  ii.  of  DurancVs  Life  (1883). 


UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA'S   CO-OPERATJON        153 

teen  months,  in  three  or  five  pairs  of  fetters,  that  he  might 
win  the  land  for  Christ,  as  he  did  win  much  of  it  for 
Christian  Britain.  This  is  the  first  testimony,  of  the  most 
upright  soldier  -  statesman  next  to  Henry  Lawrence  the 
writer  has  known,  to  the  missionaries  sent  by  evangelical 
America  for  the  conversion  of  India : — 

"  Are  we  to  suppose  truth  less  powerful  than  falsehood  ?  Are  we 
to  despair  of  her  coping  with  an  opponent,  which  the  Hindu  Pan- 
theon and  the  Brahnianical  fallacy  trod  down  into  the  dust  ?  We 
must  be  of  very  different  mettle,  and  actuated  by  very  different  views 
from  the  Burman  apostle,  Adoniram  Judson,  if  for  a  moment  so  faint- 
hearted a  feeliug  lodge  in  our  breasts.  He,  from  the  dawn  to  the 
close  of  his  eventful  career,  could  contemplate  the  millions  still  uuder 
the  yoke  of  Buddhist  error  with  the  hope  and  the  assurance  of  ultimate 
victory  for  the  cause  of  truth.  Strong  in  this  hope,  like  a  good 
soldier  of  the  Cross,  he  unfurled  his  standard  on  the  enemy's  ground  ; 
and  though  in  the  contest  it  was  at  times  struck  down,  yet  the 
standard-bearer's  heart  and  courage  were  proof,  and  the  banner 
triumphing  in  such  hands  over  every  struggle,  soon  rose  and  floated 
again  in  the  breath  of  Heaven.  We  may  well  say  with  the  Psalmist, 
'  How  are  the  mighty  fallen  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  ! '  But  in  this 
instance,  though  the  mighty  are  fallen,  the  weapons  of  war  are  not 
perished.  A  champion  of  the  Cross,  and  a  notable  one  too,  has 
indeed,  after  waging  a  seven-and-thirty-years'  conflict  against  the 
powers  of  darkness,  falleu  at  his  post ;  but  he  has  fallen  gloriously, 
leaving  a  well-furnished  armoury  to  his  seconds  and  successors  in  the 
fight — weapons  sound  of  temper,  sharp  of  edge,  and  gleaming  brightly 
with  the  light  of  Heaven.  He  was  indeed  a  mighty  champion — 
mighty  in  word — mighty  in  thought — mighty  in  suffering— mighty 
in  the  elasticity  of  an  unconquerable  spirit — mighty  in  the  entire 
absence  of  seltishness,  of  avarice,  of  all  the  meaner  passions  of  the 
unregenerate  soul — mighty  in  the  yearning  spirit  of  love  and  of 
affection— above  all,  mighty  in  real  humility,  in  the  knowledge  and 
confession  of  the  natural  evil  and  corruption  of  his  own  heart,  in  the 
weakness  which  brings  forth  strength  —  mighty  in  fulfilling  the 
apostolic  injunction,  '  Whatsoever  ye  do,  do  it  heartily,  as  to  the 
Lord,  and  not  unto  men ' — mighty  in  the  entu'e,  unreserved  devotion 
of  means,  time,  strength,  and  great  intellect  to  his  Master,  Christ. " 

That  eulogy  is  from  the  pen  of  the  high  official  who  saw 
its  subject  at  work  night  and  day,  and  it  is  within  the 
truth.     Yet  this  stern  soldier,  whose  enemies  complained 


154  THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 

of  no  fault  in  him,  save  the  severity  of  his  judgments, 
wrote  of  the  three  remarkable  companions  of  Judson's  life 
and  toil : — "  To  our  mind  there  is  no  comparison  whatever 
between  what  the  missionary  has  to  bear  and  what  his 
wife  has  to  endm^e  in  the  American  Baptist  Mission  on 
the  Tenasserim  coast." 

Contrasting  the  character,  methods,  and  results  of  the 
work  of  Judson  with  that  of  Xavier,  Durand,  who  was  no 
sectary,  wrote — 

"  The  isle  of  Sancian  saw  Xavier  expire,  with  In  te,  Domine, 
speravi ;  non  confundar  in  ceternuin  on  his  lips.  Three  centuries 
have  passed  since  this  hope  was  uttered  with  his  dying  breath  by  one 
of  the  noblest  heroes  of  the  Cross.  Of  his  labours  which,  under  any 
aspect,  were  truly  gigantic,  what  now  remains  ?  Where  are  the 
churches  which  he  founded  ?  We  will  not  ask  where  are  the  Scrip- 
tures which  he  translated,  for  that  he  considered  neither  his  duty  nor 
his  calling ;  but  where  is  there  anything  to  indicate  that  the  spoken 
word,  the  seed  sown  three  centuries  ago,  struck  root,  and  grew,  and 
continues  to  bear  fruit  ?  His  success  was  sudden,  meteor-like,  and 
transient,  as  that  of  one  of  earth's  conquerors.  It  was  too  much 
based  upon  the  gross  superstition  of  his  hearers,  to  which  his  own 
deep  enthusiasm  and  fanaticism  made  no  vain  appeal  : — he  conquered 
them  with  their  own  weapons  rather  than  with  the  dogmas  of  his  own 
creed. 

"  Far  different  has  been  the  success  of  the  seven-and-thirty  years 
of  Judson's  continuous  unflinching  labour.  His  career  has  not  been 
marked  by  the  alleged  sudden  conversion  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
idolaters.  Princes  indeed  listened,  but  did  not  bow  their  heads  to 
the  truths  of  the  gospel.  Brilliant  success  nowhere  attended  him. 
Yet  it  may  be  permitted  us  to  doubt  whether  Judson  has  not  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  fabric,  which,  instead  of  vanishing  in  the  course  of  the 
next  three  centuries,  will,  should  earth  last,  grow  into  the  stately 
proportions  of  an  extensive  and  solid  spiritual  temple." 

When,  in  1820,  Judson  first  surveyed  the  splendid 
pagodas  and  extensive  ruins  of  the  once  famous  city  of 
Pah-gan  where,  eight  centuries  before,  the  mingled  atheism 
and  devil-worship  of  the  Buddhists  was  first  disseminated 
by  Shen-ah-rah-han,  the  Christian  apostle  exclaimed — 

"  We  looked  back  on  the  centuries  of  darkness  which  are  passed. 
We  looked  forward,  and  Christian  hope  would   fain  brighten  the 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICAS  CO-OPERATION  155 

prospect.  Perhaps  we  stand  on  the  dividing  line  of  the  empires  of 
darkness  and  light.  0  shade  of  Shen-ah-rah-han  !  weep  over  thy 
fallen  fanes  ;  retire  from  the  scenes  of  thy  past  greatness  !  But  thou 
smilest  at  my  feeble  voice  ; — linger,  then,  thy  little  remaining  day. 
A  voice  mightier  than  mine — a  still  small  voice — will  erelong  sweep 
away  every  vestige  of  thy  dominion.  The  Churches  of  Jesus  will 
soon  supplant  these  idolatrous  monuments,  and  the  chanting  of  the 
devotees  of  Budh  will  die  away  before  the  Christian  hymn  of  praise." 
"True,  Judson,"  adds  Durand,  "and  those  Christian  hymns  of  praise 
will  ascend  heavenward,  either  in  your  own  pure  rendering  of  the 
words  of  the  sweet  psalmist  of  Israel,  or  in  the  poetical  versions  and 
original  compositions  of  the  talented  being,  the  second  partner  of 
your  labours  and  trials." 

Before  death  parted  them,  and  she  was  laid  to  rest  in  the 
green  islet  of  St.  Helena,  Sarah  Judson  wrote  the  lines 
which  sent  her  husband  back  to  the  conflict,  and  which 
thus  conclude — 

"  Then  gird  thine  armour  on,  love, 
Nor  faint  thou  by  the  way — 
Till  the  Budh  shall  fall,  and  Burma's  sons 
Shall  own  Messiah's  sway." 

When  Judson  himself  revisited  his  native  land,  and  was 
about  to  return  to  finish  his  service  in  Burma,  voiceless 
with  emotion  he  wrote  at  Boston  a  farewell  address  which 
should  be  the  priceless  heritage  of  American  Christians. 
"  At  one  moment  the  lapse  of  thirty-four  years  is  anni- 
hilated ;  the  scenes  of  1812  are  again  present."  But  where, 
he  asked,  are  "  my  early  missionary  associates — Newell, 
and  Hall,  and  Rice,  and  Richards,  and  Mills  ?  Where  are 
the  intervening  generation  who  moved  among  the  dark 
scenes  of  Rangoon,  and  Ava,  and  Tavoy?  With  what 
words  shall  I  address  those  who  have  taken  their  places — 
the  successors  of  the  venerated  and  beloved — of  the 
generation  of  1819  ?"— 

"  In  that  year  American  Christians  pledged  themselves  to  the 
work  of  evangelizing  the  world.  They  had  but  little  to  rest  on, 
except  the  command  and  promise  of  God.  The  attempts  then  made 
by  British  Christians  had  not  been  attended  with  so  much  success  as 
to  establish  the  practicabiUty,  or  vindicate  the  wisdom,  of  missionary 


156  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

enterprise.  For  many  years  the  work  advanced  but  slowly.  One 
denomination  after  another  embarked  in  the  undertaking,  and  now 
American  missionaries  are  seen  in  almost  every  land  and  every  clime. 
Many  languages  have  been  acquired ;  many  translations  of  the  Bible 
have  been  made  ;  the  gospel  has  been  extensively  preached  ;  and 
Churches  have  been  established,  containing  thousands  of  sincere  in- 
telligent converts.  The  obligation,  therefore,  on  the  present  generation 
to  redeem  the  pledge  given  by  their  fathers  is  greatly  enhanced.  And 
it  is  an  animating  consideration  that,  with  the  enhancement  of  the 
obligation,  the  encouragements  to  persevere  in  the  work,  and  to  make 
still  greater  efforts,  are  increasing  from  year  to  year.  Judging  from 
the  past,  what  may  we  rationally  expect  during  the  lapse  of  another 
thirty  or  forty  years  ?  Look  forward  with  the  eye  of  faith.  See  the 
missionary  spirit  universally  diffused,  and  in  active  operation  through- 
out this  country — every  Church  sustaining,  not  only  its  own  minister, 
but,  through  some  general  organization,  its  own  missionary  in  a 
foreign  land.  See  the  Bible  faithfully  translated  into  all  languages — 
the  rays  of  the  lamp  of  Heaven  transmitted  through  every  medium, 
and  illuminating  all  lands.  See  the  Sabbath  spreading  its  holy  calm 
over  the  face  of  the  earth — the  Churches  of  Zion  assembling,  and  the 
praises  of  Jesus  resounding  from  shore  to  shore  ;  and  though  the  great 
majority  may  still  remain,  as  now  in  this  Christian  country,  '  without 
hope  and  without  God  in  this  world,'  yet  the  barriers  in  the  way  of 
the  descent  and  operations  of  the  Holy  Spirit  removed,  so  that 
revivals  of  religion  become  more  constant  and  more  powerful. 

''The  world  is  yet  in  its  infancy.  The  gracious  designs  of  God 
are  yet  hardly  developed.  *  Glorious  things  are  spoken  of  Zion,  the 
city  of  our  God.'  " 

The  writer  of  that  prayer-prophecy  broke  forth  —  "I 
wish  with  my  own  voice  to  praise  God  for  the  proofs  which 
He  has  given  of  His  interest  in  missions.  Pray  for  me  and 
my  associates  and  the  missionary  work."  What  a  rebuke 
is  this  to  the  little  faith  of  the  Churches  at  the  close  of 
the  first  missionary  century  !  But  the  answer  has  assuredly 
come  to  that  longing  aspiration  in  a  way  that  Judson  knew 
not,  when  he  declared  himself  ready  to  go  to  Ava  again 
and  risk  his  life  once  more  if  he  could  only  have  an  article 
of  toleration  inserted  in  the  British  treaty  with  the  king. 
First  Pegu  and  then  all  Burma  fell  under  Christian  sway, 
and  toleration  reigned  from  the  Bay  of  Bengal  to  the  con- 
fines of  China  and  even  over  Siam.      Christian  governors 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICAS  CO-OPERATION  157 

succeeded  Durand — Arthur  Phayre,  beloved  by  every 
American  in  Burma,  Sir  Rivers  Thomson,  Sir  Charles 
Aitchison,  Sir  Charles  Bernard,  and  the  present  provincial 
ruler.  The  Karens  have  poured  into  the  Church  by 
families  and  villages;  the  Bui'mans  follow  more  slowly. 
But  the  census  revealed  120,768  native  Christians  in 
Burma  three  years  ago,  of  whom  those  under  Judson's 
society  had  increased  at  the  rate  of  43  per  cent  in  ten 
years.  "  One  soweth  and  another  reapeth,"  and  both  shall 
rejoice  in  the  harvest  since,  on  27th  June  1819,  Judson 
wrote  in  his  journal,  "  Moung  Nan,  the  first  Burman 
convert,  was  baptized." 

When  the  other  early  missionaries  of  the  American 
Board,  Hall  and  Nott,  were  driven  from  Calcutta  in  1812 
they  took  ship  to  Bombay,  relying  on  the  Christian  repu- 
tation of  the  governor.  Sir  Evan  Nepean.  After  warning 
them  off,  the  discussions  in  England  on  the  first  charter  of 
toleration  in  1813  led  him  to  temporise,  and  they  were 
with  difficulty  permitted  to  take  up  the  great  mission  to 
the  Marathas  of  Western  India,  for  whom  Carey  had  just 
prepared  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  besides 
Grammar  and  Dictionary.  In  places  like  Kalyan,  seat  of 
a  Nestorian  bishopric  and  scene  of  the  martyrdom  of  four 
Eomish  Christians,  and  away  inland  to  Ahmednuggur,  the 
missions  of  the  American .  Board  have  done  a  work  which 
extorted  the  praise  of  the  governor.  Sir  Bartle  Frere, 
as  it  had  met  with  the  support  of  Sir  Robert  Grant,  the 
hymn-^vriter,  and  led  the  present  ruler  of  the  Presidency, 
Lord  Harris,  to  publicly  declare  when  last  year  he  opened 
some  of  the  mission  buildings  : — "  I  do  not  think  I  can 
too  prominently  say  that  our  gratitude  towards  this 
American  Mission  has  been  piling  up  and  piling  up  all  the 
years  of  this  century."  Again,  "  I  take  this  public  oppor- 
tunity of  conveying,  on  behalf  of  the  Government  of  Bom- 
bay, our  most  grateful  thanks  for  the  assistance  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  rendering  in  pushing  forward  the 
cause  of  education  in  India.  The  conjunction  of  the  efforts 
of  the  two  countries  out  here  is  a  happy  augury  that  their 
joint  efforts  may  be  put  forth  in  other  directions  also." 


158  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

In  the  older  Presidency  of  Madras  the  present  Governor, 
Lord  Wenlock,  when  opening  the  Arthur  G.  Watts 
Memorial  of  the  American  Lutheran  Mission  at  Guntoor 
this  year,  spoke  thus  from  the  neutrality  point  of  view : — 
"  Our  cousins  in  America  are  not,  as  we  are,  responsible 
for  the  welfare  of  a  very  large  number  of  the  human  race; 
but  seeing  our  difficulties  and  knowing  how  much  there  is 
to  do,  they  have  not  hesitated  to  put  their  hands  into  their 
pockets  to  assist  us  in  doing  that  which  is  almost  impos- 
sible for  any  government  to  achieve  unassisted.  They  go 
out  themselves,  their  wives,  and  their  sisters ;  they  enter 
into  all  parts  of  the  country,  they  spend  a  very  large 
amount  of  money,  and  they  spend  their  time  and  their 
health  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  those  who  are  in  no 
way  connected  with  them  in  an  extremely  kind  and 
generous  manner,  not  only  in  Kistna  district,  but  in  other 
parts  of  the  Presidency.  In  all  districts  I  find  our  Ameri- 
can cousins  joining  with  us  in  improving  the  system  of 
education  and  in  extending  it  wherever  it  was  wanted. 
To  their  efforts  we  owe  a  very  great  deal.  It  must  be 
recognised  that  their  great  object  is  the  advancement  of  the 
Christian  religion." 

In  the  North- Western  Provinces,  in  Lucknow,  the  late 
Dr.  Badley  founded  the  Christian  College  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Methodists  on  a  site  granted  by  the  State  near 
the  sacred  mound  of  the  Eesidency,  which  is  for  ever 
associated  with  memories  of  the  double  siege,  and  of 
Henry  Lawrence's  death.  The  Lieutenant-Governor,  Sir 
Auckland  Colvin,  as  his  last  public  act,  opened  the  build- 
ing, declaring  that  ever  since  his  arrival  in  India  he  had 
vritnessed  with  much  satisfaction  the  aid  given  by  mis- 
sionaries to  the  British  Government  in  educational  and 
philanthropic  enterprises.  He  eulogised  the  Episcopal 
Methodist  missionaries,  whom  Dr.  DuiF  invited  to  take 
up  the  evangelisation  of  Oudh  just  before  the  Mutiny  of 
1857,  for  their  consistent  and  large-hearted  policy  and 
their  widely  beneficent  plan  for  the  improvement  of  all 
classes  of  the  people.  He  pointed  with  satisfaction  to  the 
union  of  the  American  and  the  British  flags  which  he  saw 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICAS  CO-OPERATION  159 

around  the  new  hall.  The  proceedings  finished  with  the 
national  anthem. 

In  the  most  populous  of  all  the  provinces  of  India, 
Bengal,  with  its  seventy  millions  of  human  beings,  the 
Lieutenant-Governor,  Sir  Charles  Elliot,  made  at  the 
Himalaya  sanatorium  of  Darjeeling  a  statement  which  marks 
the  advance  in  a  wise  toleration  secured  by  British  rule  in 
the  East,  when  reporting  for  the  first  time  that  the  number 
of  Christians  in  his  jurisdiction  had  increased  from  122,000 
to  189,000  in  the  ten  years  ending  1891.  He  described 
missionaries  of  all  Churches  as  forming  "  an  unrecognised 
and  unofficial  branch  of  the  great  movement  which  alone 
justifies  British  rule  in  Southern  Asia.  The  ofiicers  of 
Government  have  to  treat  all  alike  in  religious  matters, 
and  to  show  no  more  consideration  for  one  faith  than  for 
another,  though  they  know  right  well  that  the  only  hoj)e 
for  the  true  development  and  elevation  of  the  peoples  lies 
in  the  evangelisation  of  India.  Only  the  missionaries  are 
carrying  on  that  work,  filling  up  what  is  deficient  in  the 
efforts  of  the  Government." 

The  revival  of  foreign  missionary  enthusiasm  created 
by  the  visit  of  Judson  was  renewed  by  that  of  Duff  in 
the  year  1854.  The  Scots  missionary  and  orator  had 
completed  the  reorganisation  of  the  missionary  adminis- 
tration of  his  own  Church,  and  was  about  to  return  to 
Bengal  for  the  last  time,  when  Mr.  George  H.  Stuart  in- 
duced him  to  spend  four  months  in  America.  Beginning 
with  a  vast  meeting  in  Philadelphia,  he  spent  the  weeks 
from  February  to  May  in  a  campaign  which  extended  from 
Louisville  and  St.  Louis  north  to  Chicago  and  Canada, 
and  closed  with  New  York.  Then  in  the  perfection  of 
his  powers,  still  under  fifty  years  of  age,  the  greatest 
missionary  statesman  Christendom  has  seen,  whether  as 
organiser,  teacher,  or  orator,  produced  an  efiect  on  the 
Churches  which  continues  to  this  hour.  All  was  gathered 
up  and  directed  to  a  practical  end  in  the  first  Union 
Missionary  Convention  of  America,  fruitful  parent  of  many 
ecumenical  assemblies  in  the  subsequent  forty  years.  On 
the  roll  of  the  Convention  are  found  the  names  of  betwceu 


160  THE   CONVERSION   OE   INDIA 

two  and  three  hundred  representatives  of  the  Evangelical 
Churches  and  Missions,  notably  those  of  the  Eeformed 
(Dutch)  Church.  The  five  resolutions  passed,  after  frank 
and  harmonious  conference,  embody  the  principles  of  the 
missions  which  are  evangelising  India  and  the  non-Chris- 
tian world,  as  these  had  not  been  stated  since  in  1805  Carey, 
Marshman,  and  Ward  drew  up  the  covenant  of  Serampore.^ 
On  reporting  the  proceedings  to  his  own  Church,  Duff 
declared,  "  When  these  men  of  all  ages  and  denominations 
came  together  and  began  to  speak  of  Christ's  work — the 
work  of  the  evangelisation  of  the  nations — it  was  astonishing 
what  a  spirit  of  love  sprang  forth  into  vivid  manifestation. 
One  veneral)le  man  said,  '  It  is  the  dawning  of  the  millen- 
nium.' May  that  spirit  speedily  pervade  the  entire 
ecclesiastical  firmament  of  the  New  World,  and  reach  every 
corner  of  a  sadly  divided  and  distracted  old  Christendom!" 
Summoning  America  and  Britain  alike  to  form  the  United 
States  of  the  World — united  for  its  evangelisation — he 
had  said  to  this  Convention  of  1854,  "Let  us  arise  and 
march  together  as  one  mighty  phalanx  to  the  spiritual 
conquest  of  the  nations." 

At  this  time  evangelical  America,  through  forty-two 
Churches  and  Societies,  is  spending  a  million  sterling  a  year 
on  foreign  missions  of  all  kinds.  Its  contribution  to  the 
conversion  of  the  non- Christian  world  is  a  missionary 
battalion  of  3500  men  and  women  directing  11,500  native 
helpers,  of  whom  1250  are  ordained,  and  supervising 
26,000  churches  in  the  mission  fields.  Of  its  foreign 
representatives  1250  are  ordained  missionaries,  250  are 
lay  missionaries,  and  850  are  women,  besides  missionaries' 
wives,  who  make  up  the  American  force  of  3500.  These 
are  trained  and  sent  forth  by  the  evangelical  majority  of 
the  Christians  of  the  west.  The  whole  Church  member- 
ship of  the  United  States  numbers  twenty-one  millions, 
ind  the  last  census  reveals  their  Church  property  at  a  value 
Df  more  than  646  millions  of  dollars,  or  129  million  pounds 
sterling.     How  much  of  the  one  million  of  this  given  by 

^  See  Short  History  of  Missions,  page  166  of  3rd  edition.     Edin- 
burgh, 1890. 


UNITED  STATES^  OF  A^.IERICA'S  CO-OrERATION         161 

the  evangelical  Churches  for  foreign  missions  goes  to  India 
does  not  clearly  appear,  but  these  are  their  organisations 
now  at  work  in  India  proper,  Burma,  and  Ceylon,  side  by 
side  with  those  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


UNITED  KINGDOM  OF  GREAT 
BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 
AND  ITS  COLONIES. 

Baptist  Missionary  Society.^ 
,,       Zanana  Society. 
*  Canadian   Baptist  Telugu   Mis- 


UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA. 

Baptist  Missionary  Union. 
Free  Baptist  Missionary  Society. 


*  London  Missionary  Society. 

Church  Missionary  Society. 

,,       Zanana  Society. 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  Society. 
,,  Ladies' Association. 

Oxford  Mission. 
Cambridge  ]\Iission. 

*  Society  of  St.  John  the  Baptist. 
Dent  Mission. 

Local  Church  of  England. 

Free  Church  of  Scotland. 

,,  Woman's  Society. 

Established  Church  of  Scotland. 

,,  Ladies'  Association. 

*  United  Presbyterian  Church  of 

Scotland. 

*  Presbyterian  Church  of  England. 

*  Welsh  Calvinistic  Mission. 

*  Presbyterian  Church  of  Ireland. 

*  Canadian  Presbyterian  Church. 
Original    Secession    Church    of 

Scotland. 


Board     of     Commissioners 
Foreign  Missions. 


for 


Presbyterian  Church  (North). 
United  Presbyterian  Church. 
Reformed  (Dutch)  Church. 
Reformed  Presbyterian  Church. 
German  Evangelical  Missionary 
Society  in  the  United  States. 


1  Including  Carey's  Society  of  1792,  and  the  General  Baptist  Society 
founded  by  Pike  in  1816,  happily  amalgamated  before  the  Centenary 
of  the  former. 

*  These  Societies  report  woman  missionaries,  but  not  separate 
organisations  for  woman's  work. 


162  THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 


UNITED  KINGDOM  OF  GREAT  UNITED  STATES  OF 

BRITAIN  AND    IRELAND  AMERICA. 

AND  ITS  COLONIES. 

*  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society.  Episcopal  Methodist  Cliurcli. 

,,  Woman's  Society. 

Free  Methodists. 

Society  of  Friends.  American  Evangelical  Lutheran. 

Bengal  Evangelical  Mission.  „       Lutheran  Church  Board. 

Faith  Mission  (Berar). 

Kurku  Mission  (Central  Pro- 
vinces). 

Chinsurah  Zanana  Mission.  American  Women's  Union  Zan- 

Society    for    Promoting    Female  ana  Mission. 

Education  in  the  East.  American     Episcopal      Mission 

Zanana  Bible  and  Medical  Mis-  (Calcutta). 

sion. 


OTHERS. 

Indian  Home  Mission. 
Bethel  Santal  Mission. 
Strict  Baptist  Mission. 
Australian  Baptist  Missions, 
Foreign  Christian  Mission. 
East  Bengal  Aborigines'  Mission. 

Basel  German  Evangelical  Mission. 
Danish  Lutheran  Missionary  Society 
German  Evangelical  Lutheran  (Gossner's). 
Hermannsburg  (Hanover)  Mission. 
Leipzig  Evangelical  Lutheran  Mission. 
Swedish  Evangelical  Lutheran  Mission. 
Episcopal  Moravians  or  United  Brethren. 

Christo  Somaj  (Calcutta). 
Independent  Mission  (Calcutta). 
Christian  Disciples  (Calcutta). 
Private  Mission  (Jamtara,  Santalia), 


*  This  Society  reports  woman  missionaries,  but  not  a  separate  organ- 
isation for  woman's  work. 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA'S  CO-OPERATION         163 

These  sixty-four  organisations,  great  and  small,  are 
reported  on  as  working  in  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon,  at 
the  end  of  the  year  1890,  by  the  Calcutta  Missionary 
Conference,  which  has  taken  a  detailed  census  of  the  Pro- 
testant Missions  there  in  the  five  years  1851,  1861,  1871, 
1881,  and  1890.^  Of  the  sixty-four  the  United  States  of 
America  conduct  eighteen,  and  Germany  and  other 
European  and  isolated  agencies,  seventeen.  Except  by  one 
lady  in  Calcutta  the  Episcopal  Church  of  America  has  not 
yet  entered  on  the  evangelisation  of  India. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  blessings  which  the  evangelical 
Churches  of  America  have  conferred  on  the  people  of 
British  India  is  that  of  healing  their  sick  women,  and  thus 
powerfully  showing  the  practically  imprisoned  inmates  of 
the  zanana  and  hareem,  and  the  multitudes  of  widows  so 
many  of  whom  have  never  been  wives,  that  to  them  the 
kingdom  of  God  has  come.  Till  recently  Great  Britain 
could  not  thus  do  what  the  liberal  educational  system  of 
the  United  States  had  long  enabled  woman  medical  mis- 
sionaries to  begin.  If  Carey's  colleague,  Dr.  Thomas,  was 
the  first  medical  missionary  to  the  East  in  1790,^  and  in 
1798  the  Dutch  Dr.  Vanderkemp,  an  Edinburgh  student, 
began  his  mission  to  the  Hottentots  and  Kafirs  which 
extorted  the  admiration  of  Henry  Martyn,  it  was  Dr. 
Dufl^s  educational  system  which  in  1834  really  founded 
medical  missions  in  India.^  He  first  induced  his  students, 
Bengali  men  and  now  women,  to  take  a  full  medical 
qualification  then  in  Great  Britain  and  now  in  the 
Indian  Universities,  and  started  on  their  beneficent  action 
the  great  hospitals  and  dispensaries  of  the  Government  of 
India.  But  long  opposed  by  the  teaching  and  licensing 
bodies  in  the  United  Kingdom,  Christian  women,  yearning 
to  relieve  the  misery,  spiritual  and  bodily,  of  the  millions 
of  their  sisters  in  the  East,  by  teaching  them  of  Christ  the 

1  See  the  comparative  results  in  the  Statistical  Tables,  1890,  pub- 
lished at  Calcutta  by  the  Baptist  Mission  Press  in  1892. 

2  In  1740  the  Moravian  Brethren  sent  five  medical  men  to  Persia, 
but  unsuccessfully. 

8  See  his  Life,  vol.  i.,  chapter  8. 


164  THE   CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

healer,  were  driven  to  America  or  Switzerland  for  train- 
ing. Of  the  women  missionaries  sent  out  by  America,  no 
nobler  has  lived  and  died  for  the  women  and  children  of 
India  than  Mary  Seelye,  M.D.  She  worked  alone  in  the 
dense  population  of  Calcutta,  and  the  gigantic  work  killed 
her  in  the  midst  of  her  success.  The  same  fate  befell  other 
solitary  and  unaided  workers — establishing  the  .lesson  that 
it  is  more  true  of  women  than  of  men,  and  more  true  of 
medical  than  of  other  missionaries,  that  they  must  go  forth 
at  least  two  and  two.  Now  no  evangelical  mission  in  India 
is  complete  without  those  skilled  and  spiritual  ministrants 
to  the  secluded  half  of  the  population  of  India,  whom  the 
example  of  America  has  led  the  medical  schools  of  Great 
Britain  and  India  itself  to  train  and  send  forth  to  the 
highest  calling  that  women  can  follow. 

The  story  of  one  family  and  one  mission  will  best  illus- 
trate the  nature  and  the  fruit  of  the  co-operation  of  the 
Christians  of  America  with  those  of  the  United  Kingdom 
in  the  conversion  of  India.  The  family  are  the  Scudders 
of  four  generations ;  the  mission  is  that  of  the  Reformed 
(Dutch)  Church  to  Aixot  in  South  India. 

Five  years  before  the  death  of  Schwartz,  or  on  3rd 
September  1793,  just  a  century  ago,  John  Scudder  was 
born  at  Freehold,  New  Jersey,  and  became  one  of  the 
first  physicians  in  New  York.  After  a  spiritual  conflict 
with  doubt  of  extraordinary  intensity  he  found  peace  and 
power,  and  became  one  of  the  most  active  members  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  city.  While  waiting  in  the 
anteroom  of  a  lady  patient,  he  took  up  a  paper  on  "  The 
Conversion  of  the  World,  or  the  Claims  of  Six  Hundred 
Millions,  and  the  Ability  and  Duty  of  the  Churches 
respecting  them."  He  had  been  moved  by  the  self-sur- 
render of  Judson  and  the  other  young  men  of  his  own  age 
ten  years  before,  but  had  put  the  call  from  him.  Now  he  at 
once  off'ered  himself  to  the  American  Board.  In  1819  he 
sailed  from  Boston  to  Ceylon,  where  he  was  ordained  and 
joined  Newell;  in  1836  he  mado  the  city  of  Madras  the 
centre  of  his  Tamil  work,  and  he  died  when  on  sick  leave 
at  Wynberg,  Cape  Colony,  in  1855.     No  stronger,  more 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA'S  CO-OPERATION  1G5 

versatile,  or  more  successful  missionary  pioneer  ever 
evangelised  a  people  as  healer,  preacher,  teacher,  and 
translator,  in  season  and  out  of  season.  He  lived  in 
praying  and  working  till,  although  he  knew  it  not,  he 
realised  his  ambition  even  in  this  world,  "  to  be  one  of  the 
inner  circle  around  Jesus."  Such  a  man  had  sons  and 
children's  children  like  himself  to  the  fourth  generation.^ 
There  was  not  a  town  in  South-Eastern  India  which  had 
not  heard  the  gospel  of  Christ  from  his  lips.  There  was 
not  a  village  to  which  the  publications  of  his  Tamil  press 
had  not  penetrated,  while  his  descendants  worked  by 
his  side  and  took  up  his  mantle.  His  son,  Silas,  born  in 
Ceylon  in  1833,  was,  like  them  all,  the  subject  of  his 
father's  daily  prayer — "  Make  him  a  Christian  and  make 
him  a  missionary."  The  boy  resisted,  determined  to  make 
a  fortune  as  a  physician  in  New  York,  where  he  founded 
the  Women's  Hospital.  But  prayer  prevailed,  and  he  went 
out  as  a  medical  missionary  to  Arcot,  where  the  Governor 
of  Madras,  Lord  Napier  and  Ettrick,  took  Mr.  Seward  and 
many  a  visitor  to  see  one  of  the  most  remarkable  insti 
tutions  under  his  administration.  Like  so  many  of  the 
best  men  and  women  of  all  callings  in  India,  he  died  of 
overwork. 

It  was  in  1850  that  John  Scudder's  eldest  son,  Henry 
Martyn  Scudder,  M.D.,  born  in  Ceylon  in  1822,  made  a 
tour  from  Madras  city  in  the  neighbouring  districts  of 
Arcot.  There,  where  Ziegenbalg  had  opened  a  school  in 
1716,  where  Sartorius  ended  his  toils,  and  Kiernander 
taught  before  he  went  to  Calcutta,  and  Schwartz  landed  in 
1750,  while  Jean  de  Britto  had  carried  on  an  offshoot  of 
the  Jesuit  mission  of  Kobert  de  Nobilibus,  Scudder  found  a 
million  and  a  half  of  human  beings  who  had  never  heard 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  sought  and  obtained  per- 
mission to  make  the  centre  of  a  new  mission  in  the 
northern  district  the  city  of  Arcot,  immortalised  in  history 
as  the  capital  of  the  Nawabs  of  the  Karnatic,  captured 
and  defended  by  Clive,  as  Orme  and  Macaulay  so  vividly 

^  See  the  early  list  in  Dr.  Corwin's  Manual  of  the  BefoTTned  CTmrch 
in  America  (1879),  Srd  edition. 


166  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

describe.  Following  the  slow  and  sure  method  of  the 
Scottish  and  American  Presbyterians,  Henry  Martyn 
Scudder,  his  colleagues  and  successors,  "never  baptize 
any  one,  be  his  proficiency  in  knowledge  ever  so  great, 
unless  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  is  the  subject  of 
regeneration,  and  fit  to  enter  the  Church."^  In  that  light 
this  latest  review  of  forty  years'  mission  work  in  North 
Arcot  should  be  read  :  ^ — 

"  It  is  a  little  more  than  forty  years  since  Eev.  Dr.  Henry  Martyn 
Scudder  first  pitched  his  tent  in  the  North  Arcot  district,  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  this  mission.  Forty  years  is  but  a  brief  cycle 
in  a  land  so  hoary  with  age  as  India,  but  we  doubt  whether  any 
previous  four  decades  have  witnessed  such  stupendous  changes.  The 
material  development  of  the  district  has  been  remarkable.  Railways 
now  penetrate  the  very  heart  of  our  mission  field.  Electric  wires 
connect  all  our  mission  stations.  Macadamised  roads  traverse  the 
country  in  eveiy  direction.  Magnificent  bridges  span  the  various 
rivers.  Hospitals  and  dispensaries  are  established  in  all  important 
centres.  Houses  of  brick  and  tile  take  the  place  of  those  of  mud  and 
thatch  in  our  towns.  Clean  streets  and  whitewashed  walls  show  the 
observance  of  sanitary  laws. 

"Nor  has  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  people  been  less  marked. 
It  is  hard  to  believe,  as  one  sees  the  vast  number  of  schools  that  now 
exist  of  aU  gi-ades,  the  growing  number  of  natives  who  know  English, 
the  increasing  circulation  of  papers  and  magazines,  that  all  this  has 
come  about  within  the  last  forty  years.  And  yet  such  is  the  fact. 
The  social  and  moral  changes  have  likewise  been  great.  Superstitious 
customs  that  have  been  more  poAverful  than  law  are  gradually  dis- 
appearing ;  Christian  ideas  on  all  subjects  are  spreading ;  the  native 
mind  is  being  formed  on  a  new  model.  Natives  of  all  castes  travel 
freely  by  rail,  attend  the  same  school,  and  even  read  from  the  same 
book.  Sudras  contend  with  Brahmans  for  the  highest  government 
posts. 

"  Toward  the  accomplishment  of  these  results  our  missionaries  have 
contributed  no  small  share.  Besides  preaching  the  gospel  they  have 
identified  themselves  with  nearly  every  enterprise  that  has  had  for  its 
object  the  amelioration  of  the  people.     They  have  been  foremost  in 

^  Dr.  E.  C.  Scudder's  paper,  read  to  the  Allahabad  Missionary 
Conference  of  1871. 

2  Sixty -First  AnnvM  Report  of  the  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Reformed 
Church  in  America^  June  1893. 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA'S  CO-OPERATION  167 

the  extension  of  medical  work.  They  were  the  pioneers  of  female 
education.  They  have  encouraged  and  helped  to  promote  sanitary 
reform.     They  have  been  the  ready  friend  of  the  poor  and  oppressed. 

"But  what  is  there  to  show  in  the  way  of  direct  results?  In 
1861,  ten  years  after  he  had  entered  the  district,  the  founder  of  the 
mission  was  permitted  to  begin  the  annual  report  as  follows  : — '  This 
mission,  which  sprang  from  a  slender  shoot,  is  by  the  culture  of  the 
Great  Husbandman  becoming  a  tree  with  boughs  and  flowers  and  fruit. 
This  day  we  number  nine  missionaries,  one  native  pastor,  six  churches, 
six  catechists,  four  readers,  six  teachers,  and  796  nominal  Christians, 
of  whom  232  are  communicants.  See  what  the  Lord  has  wrought ! 
"We  gaze  upon  His  stately  steppings  and  wonder  and  adore.  He  has 
transcended  all  our  expectations.'  But  what  emotions  of  joy  would 
fiU  our  brother's  soul  could  he  visit  the  mission  to-day  !  While  the 
number  of  missionaries  remains  about  the  same,  we  are  able  to  report 
eight  native  pastors,  sixty- two  catechists,  seventy- five  readers  and 
teachers,  twenty-three  churches,  124  congregations,  1881  communi- 
cants, 122  schools  with  4517  pupils,  1809  of  whom  are  girls,  and  a 
Christian  community  of  6504  souls. 

"  To  free  the  Hindu  from  the  shackles  that  Brahmanism  has  im- 
posed upon  him,  and  build  him  ap  so  that  all  his  faculties,  moral, 
intellectual,  and  physical,  shall  receive  development,  is  the  work  of  the 
missionary.  It  is  plain  that  the  first  step  toward  the  new  life  must 
be  conversion,  but  we  use  the  word  in  no  narrow  sense.  It  is  a  con- 
version from  what  is  false  to  what  is  true,  from  what  is  degrading  to 
what  is  ennobling,  from  what  is  earthly  and  sensual  to  what  is 
heavenly  and  spiritual.  But  while  the  work  starts  with  conversion, 
it  does  not  end  there.  That  is  simply  tlie  beginning  which  is  to  lead 
up  to  the  true  ideal,  viz.  character,  the  end  of  all  being — the  character 
of  Christ,  which  is  the  character  of  God.  We  are  aware  that  ours  is 
no  easy  task.  But  we  have  yet  to  find  any  solid  work  for  God  that  is 
easy.  Nor  do  we  expect  to  realise  our  hopes  in  a  single  generation. 
Neither  reason  nor  revelation  warrants  us  in  expecting  such  a  result. 
We  are  building  not  simply  for  the  present,  but  for  the  future. 

''Although  we  preach  the  gospel  of  peace,  the  world  does  not 
at  first  receive  it  as  such.  Every  soul  won  for  Christ  is  a  conquest. 
We  ask  our  friends  to  cultivate  with  us  the  grace  of  patience.  It  is 
gi-eatly  needed  in  the  world  to-day,  and  by  no  people  more  than  by 
Americans.  We  assume  that  the  rate  at  which  we  travel  and  erect 
buildings  or  make  fortunes  must  have  its  counterpart  in  the  Avork  of 
missions  too,  and  hence  the  impatience  for  immediate  results.  Listen 
to  the  weighty  words  of  one  of  England's  greatest  preachers.  *  Archi- 
tects and  builders  adjust  their  work  to  the  temper  of  the  day,  but  the 


168  THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

Eternal  "Workman  heeds  not  the  varying  moods  and  fashions  of  His 
creatures,  but,  in  spite  of  the  demand  for  rapid  production,  is  at  this 
hour  as  slow  and  as  sure  in  His  work  as  at  any  past  time  in  history. 
A  mission  is  essentiall}^  a  work  in  which  man  counts  for  little  although 
his  active  exertion  is  imperatively  necessary.  When  this  is  felt,  it 
will  be  felt  also  that  an  order,  so  to  describe  it,  upon  a  given  mission 
for  so  many  converts  at  least,  within  such  and  such  a  time,  is  an 
indefensible  thing.' " 

Columbus  found  America  when  he  was  looking  for 
India,  and  he  persisted  in  the  conviction  that  it  was 
India  he  had  found.  So  let  it  be ;  let  us  believe  that  the 
instinct  of  the  great  missionary  admiral  was  true,  as  his 
America  is  used  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  carry  life  and 
light  and  joy  to  each  of  the  great  peoples  of  British 
India,  to  the  Burmans  and  Karens  of  the  north-east ;  to 
the  Hindus,  Mohammedans,  and  Sikhs  of  the  martial 
north  and  north-west;  to  the  Marathas  of  the  western 
coast  and  plateau ;  to  the  Telugus  of  the  eastern  and 
central  districts ;  to  the  Tamils  of  Arcot  and  Madura  in 
the  south ;  and  to  the  villages  of  the  depressed  peoples 
who  are  everywhere  pressing  into  the  kingdom,  from  the 
Pariah  serfs  of  Madras  to  the  Choorha  peasants  of  Sialkot. 


vm 

THE  METHODS   OF  THE  EVANGELICAL   MISSION   TO   INDIA 

"  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever helieveth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.  For 
God  sent  not  His  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn  the  loorld ;  but  that 
the  world  through  Him  might  be  saved" — St.  John  iii.  16,  17. 

What  is  the  India  to  which,  with  a  patient  faith  and 
sometimes  halting  obedience,  the  Churches  of  the  British 
Emj^ire  and  of  the  United  States  of  America  are  teaching 
Christianity  %  It  is  the  land  of  three  hundred  millions 
of  Hindus,  Buddhists,  Mohammedans,  and  Animists,  all 
at  variance  with  each  other,  and  each  dissatisfied  with 
himself,  all  "  vain  in  their  imaginations  and  their  foolish 
hearts  darkened."  Because  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  "  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth  " 
the  missionary  preaches  that  gospel  to  India  as  Paul  did 
to  Rome.  There  is  a  school  of  thinkers,  somewhat  dis- 
proportionately represented  in  the  civil  service  of  India, 
who  loftily  patronise  the  Christian  missionary  as  on  the 
same  superstitious  level  with  the  votary  of  every  religion, 
and  declare  that  "  England's  prime  function  in  India  is  at 
present  this,  to  superintend  the  tranquil  elevation  of 
the  whole  moral  and  intellectual  standard."  ^  Even  the 
positivist,  the  agnostic,  and  the  eclectic,  who  believe 
death  to   end   all,  admit  that  the  Hindu  may  be   made 

^  Sir  Alfred  C.  Lyall's  Asiatic  Studies,  Religious  and  Sodal,  2nd 
edition,  1884, 


170  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

better  by  the  Christian  morality.  When  Horace  Hayman 
Wilson  wrote  his  work  on  The  Religious  Sects  of  the  Hindus 
he  stored  in  the  Bodleian  Library  of  Oxford  his  collection 
of  authorities  as  "libri  execrandi."  When  Professor 
Max  Miiller  published  his  first  volumes  of  The  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East  he  was  constrained  to  admit  their  ethical 
defects  and  even  abominations.  No  one,  Christian  or 
Comtist,  will  seriously  differ  from  the  apostle  Paul  in 
his  picture  of  Roman  idolatry  and  lust,  or  will  refuse  to 
accept  it  as  equally  true  of  the  Musalmans,  polytheists, 
and  demonolaters  of  India.  The  best  that  can  be  said  of 
the  best  of  them  fills  the  true  Christian  with  an  infinite 
pity  and  a  practical  determination  to  reveal  to  them  "  the 
Desire  of  all  nations." 


MEDITATIONS  OF  A  HINDU  PRINCE » 

All  the  world  over,  I  wonder,  in  lands  that  I  never  have  trod, 
Are  the  people  eternally  seeking  for  the  signs  and  steps  of  a  God  ? 
Westward  across  the  ocean,  and  northward  ayont  the  snow, 
Do  they  all  stand  gazing,  as  ever,  and  what  do  the  wisest  know  ? 

Here,  in  this  mystical  India,  the  deities  hover  and  swarm 

Like  the  wild  bees  heard  in  the  tree-tops,  or  the  gusts  of  a  gathering 

storm  ; 
In  the  air  men  hear  their  voices,  their  feet  on  the  rocks  are  seen, 
Yet  we  all  say,  "  Whence  is  the  message,  and  what  may  the  wonder 


A  million  shrines  stand  open,  and  ever  the  censer  swings, 

As  they  bow  to  a  mystic  symbol,  or  the  figures  of  ancient  kings  ; 

And  the  incense  rises  ever,  and  uses  the  endless  cry 

Of  those  who  are  heavy-laden,  and  of  cowards  loth  to  die. 

For  the  destiny  drives  us  together,  like  deer  in  a  pass  of  the  hills. 
Above  is  the  sky,  and  around  us  the  sound  of  the  shot  that  kills ; 
Pushed  by  a  Power  we  see  not,  and  struck  by  a  hand  unknown, 
We  pray  to  the  trees  for  shelter,  and  press  our  lips  to  a  stone. 


*  From  Verses  Written  in  India  (1889)  by  Sir  Alfred  Lyall. 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        171 

The  trees  wave  a  shadowy  answer,  and  the  rock  frowns  hollow  and 

grim, 
And  the  fonn  and  the  nod  of  the  demon  are  caught  in  the  twilight 

dim  ; 
And  we  look  to  the  sunlight  falling  afar  on  the  mountain  crest, 
Is  there  never  a  path  runs  upward  to  a  refuge  there  and  a  rest  ? 

The  path,  ah  !  who  has  shown  it,  and  which  is  the  faithful  guide  ? 
The  haven,  ah  !  who  has  known  it  ?  for  steep  is  the  mountain  side, 
For  ever  the  shot  stiikes  surely,  and  ever  the  wasted  breath 
Of  the  praying  multitude  rises,  whose  answer  is  only  death. 

Here  are  the  tombs  of  my  kinsfolk,  the  fruit  of  an  ancient  name. 
Chiefs  who  were  slain  on  the  war-field  and  women  who  died  in  flame  ; 
They  are  gods,  these  kings  of  the  foretime,  they  are  spirits  who  guard 

our  race. 
Ever  I  watch  and  worship  ;  they  sit  with  a  marble  face. 

And  the  myriad  idols  around  me,  and  the  legion  of  muttering  priests. 
The  revels  and  rites  unholy,  the  dark  unspeakable  feasts  ! 
What  have  they  wrung  from  the  silence  ?     Hath  even  a  whisper  come 
Of  the  secret  whence  and  whither  ?    Alas  !  for  the  gods  are  dumb. 

Shall  I  list  to  the  word  of  the  English,  who  come  from  the  uttermost 

sea? 
"The  secret,  hath  it  been  told  you,  and  what's  your  message  to  me  ? 
It  is  nought  but  the  wide-world  story  how  the  earth  and  the  heavens 

began. 
How  the  gods  are  glad  and  angry,  and  a  Deity  once  was  man. 

I  had  thought,   "  Perchance  in  the  cities  where  the  rulers  of  India 

dwell. 
Whose  orders  flash  from  the  farland,  who  girdle  the  eaiih  with  a  spell, 
Tliey  have  fathomed  the  depths  we  float  on,  or  measured  the  unknown 

main —  " 
Sadly  they  turn  from  the  venture,  and  say  that  the  quest  is  vain. 

Is  life  then  a  dream  and  delusion,  and  where  shall  the  dreamer 

awake  ? 
Is  the  world  seen  like  shadows  on  water,  and  what  if  the  mirror 

break  ? 
Shall  it  pass  as  a  camp  that  is  struck,  as  a  tent  that  is  gathered  and 

gone 
From  the  sands  that  were  lamp-lit  at  eve,  and  at  morning  are  level 

and  lone  ? 


172  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

Is  there  nought  in  the  heaven  above,  whence  the  hail  and  the  levin 

are  hurled, 
But  the  wind  that  is  swept  around  us  by  the  rush  of  the  rolling 

world  ? 
The  wind  that  shall  scatter  my  ashes,  and  bear  me  to  silence  and 

sleep 
With  the  dirge,  and  the  sounds  of  lamenting,  and  voices  of  women 

who  weep. 

Yes,  it  is  the  wide-world  story  of  hereditary  tradition, 
of  primitive  revelation  which,  in  its  divine  fulness, 
power,  and  sanctions,  Christianity  proclaims  for  the  con- 
version of  India  — "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He 
gave  His  only  begotten  Son."  To  deliver  in  all  its 
purity  and  completeness  such  a  message,  and  to  make  it 
effectual  with  such  men  as  the  inheritors  of  centuries  of 
ignorance  of  God  or  hostility  to  His  Son,  requires,  first 
of  all,  that  every  missionary  be  like  the  first  martyr, 
"full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  wisdom,"  "full  of  faith  and 
power"  (Acts  vi.  3,  8).  Before  all  methods  is  the 
man  who  is  to  work  them.  If  the  missionary  be  of  the 
right  spiritual  temper,  he  will  devise  or  apply  with  effi- 
ciency the  method  which  God  designs  him  to  use. 

The  classical  passages  regarding  the  call  and  qualifica- 
tions of  men  and  women  to  be  missionaries  are  Ephesians  iv. 
and  1  Corinthians  xii.  and  xiii.  The  Lord,  having  insti- 
tuted the  sacrament  of  commemoration  and  of  consecration, 
and  having  proclaimed  His  command  to  teach  all  nations, 
on  His  ascension,  "gave  some  men  as  evangelists,"  or 
"  teachers "  as  it  is  in  the  parallel  passage.  The  five 
signs  of  the  true  Christian  missionary  are  these : — 

(1)  The  missionary  must  be  conscious  of  the  call  of 
Christ  and  the  manifestation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  what- 
ever "  diversities  of  operations,"  as  in  1  Corinthians  xii. 
and  6,  are  given  to  him  by  God.  This  excludes  every 
secondary  motive  however  good  in  itself,  and  forbids 
every  unworthy  aim.  The  love  of  knowledge,  the  desire 
to  travel,  eagerness  for  early  marriage,  a  legitimate  hope 
of  position  or  reputation,  or  even  of  pleasantly  convenient 
work,  are  as  much  excluded  as  simony  and  hypocrisy,  as 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MLSSION         173 

seeking  a  livelihood  or  a  mere  respectable  profession. 
To  use  a  mediaeval  phrase,  the  missionary  must  be 
Christ-intoxicated. 

(2)  The  missionary  must,  in  his  training  and  his  work, 
"  covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts."  He  must  qualify  him- 
self for  the  highest  state  of  efficiency.  At  college  he 
must  stud}^  to  the  full  measure  of  his  powers  and  win, 
like  Henry  Martyn,  the  highest  honours  for  the  glory  of 
his  Master,  while  he  feels  that  such  honours  are  "a 
shadow,"  and  prays  that  they  be  not  a  temptation.  If 
not  a  college  man,  but  an  artisan,  he  must  be  master  of 
his  craft  and  rejoice  in  his  art,  that  by  teaching  it  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Carpenter's  Son  he  may  bring  Christian 
communities  to  the  birth  and  make  nations  of  them. 

(3)  The  missionary  must  follow  the  "  more  excellent 
way"  of  love  as  described  in  the  golden  passage  that 
follows  1  Corinthians  xii.  He  is  to  deal  with  the  dark 
races,  the  majority  of  mankind,  so  as  to  be  a  means  of 
bringing  them  out  of  darkness,  and  must  not  only  love 
them,  in  his  own  degree,  with  the  love  of  Christ,  but 
must  sympathetically  show  the  patience,  the  tenderness, 
the  wisdom  of  the  Master,  that  his  spiritual  children  may 
as  soon  as  possible  be  made  to  walk  on  their  own  feet, 
and  govern  themselves,  to  be  apostles  to  their  countrymen. 
Less  easy  still,  the  missionary  has  to  prove  that, 
although  a  good  temper  towards  his  brethren  is  so 
difficult  that  it  would  seem  practically  to  be  the  spiritual 
grace  most  seldom  attained,  he  has  learned  apostolic 
charity  in  all  its  breadth  of  humility,  self-sacrifice,  and 
geniality.  Ziegenbalg  wrote  in  1710 — "I  would  humbly 
propose  to  the  Protestant  Churches  to  supply  us  with 
learned  students  in  divinity,  and  send  them  here  to  be 
instructed  in  the  Indian  languages — men  truly  fearing 
God  and  hating  covetousness,  free  from  the  inveterate 
ecclesiastical  itch  of  ruling  over  God's  inheritance."  A 
century  later  Carey,  Marshman,  and  Ward,  in  their 
Missionary  Covenant  which  the  brotherhood  carried  out 
through  all  their  lives,  made  this  the  highest  of  the 
eleven  points  of  which  they  wrote — "  We  think  it  right  to 


174  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

fix  our  serious  and  abiding  attention."  Judson's  request 
to  America  was  for  "  humble,  quiet,  persevering  men  ;  men 
of  sound  sterling  talents,  of  decent  accomplishments  and 
natural  aptitude  to  acquire  a  language ;  men  of  an 
amiable,  yielding  temper,  willing  to  take  the  lowest  place, 
to  be  the  least  of  all  and  the  servants  of  all ;  men  who 
enjoy  much  closet  religion,  who  live  near  to  God  and  are 
willing  to  suffer  all  things  for  Christ's  sake  without  being 
proud  of  it.     These  are  the  men  we  need  ! " 

(4)  The  missionary  must  learn  habits  of  order  in  his 
person,  his  study,  his  mission,  and  of  business  in  keeping 
accounts,  so  as  to  economise  the  gifts  of  Christ's  distant 
people,  and  in  utilising  time  alike  for  work,  rest,  and 
recreation.  In  the  great  mission  fields  of  the  world  want 
of  common  sense  comes  next  to  want  of  charity  as  an 
obstruction  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

(5)  The  missionary,  so  called  and  so  possessed  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  will  complete  the  apostolic  life  and  char- 
acter thus — "  We  will  give  ourselves  continually  to  prayer 
and  to  the  ministry  of  the  Word."  The  Serampore  Cove- 
nant had  this  as  its  tenth  point — "  That  we  be  constant 
in  prayer  and  the  cultivation  of  personal  religion,  to  fit 
us  for  the  discharge  of  these  laborious  and  unutterably 
important  labours.  Let  us  often  look  at  Brainerd,  in  the 
woods  of  America,  pouring  out  his  very  soul  before  God 
for  the  perishing  heathen,  without  whose  salvation  nothing 
could  make  him  happy."  And  all  this  is  as  true  of  the 
members  of  the  organisations — Churches  and  Societies — 
which  select  and  accredit  the  missionaries  as  of  those  who 
go.  Every  true  man  and  woman  among  them  learns  the 
fact  that  the  highest  spiritual  development  and  enjoyment 
is  in  the  work  of  foreign  missions.  Andrew  Fuller,  first 
and  best  of  secretaries,  wrote  in  1789,  when  he  joined 
Carey  :  "  Before  this  I  did  little  but  pine  over  my  misery, 
but  since  I  have  betaken  myself  to  greater  activity  for 
God,  my  strength  has  been  recovered  and  my  soul 
replenished."  SutclifFe,  their  colleague,  when  dying,  ex- 
claimed, "  I  wish  I  had  prayed  more,"  or,  as  Fuller  who 
often  quoted  this,  paraphrased  it,  "  I  wish  I  had  prayed 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION  175 

more  for  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  attend  the 
labours  of  our  friends  in  India ;  I  might  have  witnessed 
more  of  the  effects  of  their  efforts  in  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen." 

It  is  on  prayer  and  sacrifice  in  Christendom,  but,  above 
all,  on  the  personal  spirituality  and  zeal  of  every  missionary 
whom  it  sends  forth  now,  that  the  future  of  the  Church 
of  India  and  the  East  depends.  If  the  history,  literature, 
and  mental  and  moral  character  of  the  peoples  of  India 
demand  Christians  of  the  highest  gifts  of  faith  and  intellect, 
the  Spirit  of  God  has  richly  granted  a  succession  of  such, 
while  illustrating  the  law  of  the  kingdom  that  weak  things 
are  chosen  to  confound  the  mighty.  Carey,  from  the  first, 
sought  help  in  the  record  of  David  Brainerd,  and  willed 
to  go  to  the  scattered  savages  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  God 
sent  him  to  Bengal,  as  He  had  sent  the  Pietist  scholars, 
Ziegenbalg,  Schultze,  and  Schwartz,  to  South  India.  Since 
the  martyrdom  of  Stephen,  of  Paul,  and  of  Peter,  no  period 
of  Church  history  and  no  region  of  the  unevangelised 
world  shows  such  a  succession  of  great  missionaries  as  the 
first  century  of  the  English-speaking  conversion  of  India. 

To  follow  the  order  of  time,  and  mention  only  the  holy 
dead,  let  the  memory  dwell  on  these  names — Carey  and 
Ward,  Marshman  and  his  wife,  and  Mack ;  David  Brown 
and  Claudius  Buchanan,  Martyn,  Corrie,  and  Thomason ; 
Heber  and  Cotton ;  Judson  and  the  three  women  who 
were  his  true  helpmeets,  and  Mason ;  Duff  and  Lacroix ; 
John  and  Isabella  Wilson  ;  John  Anderson,  Stephen  Hislop 
and  Ion  Keith  -  Falcon  er ;  Mullens  and  John  Hay; 
Noble  and  George  M.  Gordon;  Scudder  and  Newton;  Cald- 
well and  French.  Every  reader  can  add  to  the  list, 
especially  the  names  of  women,  matrons  and  maidens, 
and  some  not  professional  missionaries,  who  ministered  to 
Christ  in  the  persons  of  His  flock  in  India.  On  them,  too, 
as  on  all  the  servants  who  shall  complete  the  number  of 
God's  chosen  ones,  and  be  with  Christ  where  He  is,  the 
divine  benediction  is  spoken  and  the  apostolic  record  is 
written:  "  Prophets — who  through  faith  subdued  kingdoms, 
wrought  righteousness,  obtained  promises,"  "  of  whom  the 


176  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

world  was  not  worthy."  But  wise  and  honest  rulers  of 
the  world,  like  Lord  Lawrence,  bear  to  them  this  testi- 
mony :  "  Notwithstanding  all  that  the  English  people  have 
done  to  benefit  India,  the  missionaries  have  done  more 
than  all  other  agencies  combined." 

The  training  of  the  best  young  men  and  women  for 
missions  to  non-Christians,  especially  to  the  civilised  and 
caste-bound  millions  of  British  subjects  in  the  East,  and 
the  selection  of  the  best  of  these,  form  the  highest  func- 
tions of  Churches,  committees,  and  secretaries.  Where,  as 
under  Presbyterianisni,  the  Church  is  itself  the  missionary 
society  of  which  every  communicant  and  child  is  a  member, 
the  missionary  candidate  is  fully  trained.  He  is,  intel- 
lectually, the  product  of  three  or  four  years'  study  at  one 
of  the  national  universities,  crowned  by  a  degree,  and  of 
four  years'  thorough  mastery  of  the  Bible  in  the  two 
original  languages,  of  apologetic  and  systematic  divinity, 
of  the  history  of  the  Church,  and  of  practical  home  mission 
and  preaching  work.  Seven  or  eight  years  of  such  a 
course,  severely  tested,  and  guarded  from  the  temptations 
of  spiritual  routine,  have  produced  the  men  who  have  made 
the  pioneers  and  the  most  successful  messengers  to  the 
Brahmanical,  Buddhist,  and  Mohammedan  communities. 

Nearly  the  same  period  of  study,  in  which  four  or 
five  years  of  medicine  and  surgery  take  the  place  of  the 
Arts  course  and  of  Hebrew,  qualifies  the  most  successful 
medical  missionaries  who  are  ordained.  The  Universities 
of  Cambridge,  Oxford,  and  Dublin,  liberalised,  train  the 
Anglicans  and  Nonconformists  similarly,  though  with  less 
theology  and  scholarship,  for  the  Societies.  Such  full 
instruction  as  is  common  to  ministers  of  all  the  Churches 
is  better  for  the  future  missionary  than  that  of  special 
institutes,  although  these  are  necessary  for  unordained  and 
artisan  agents.  For  India,  of  all  the  world,  the  choicest 
of  English-speaking  youth  are  wanted.  Such  are  never 
disappointed;  the  more  accomplished  they  are  for  the 
conflict,  the  more  they  experience  the  joy  of  the  true 
warrior  for  Christ.  It  is  not  such  who  return  to  cover 
their  own    discredit  by    childish  criticism.      Ever    since 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        177 

the  evangelical  Churches  of  Christendom  united,  once  a 
year  on  St.  Andrew's  Day  and  during  the  last  week  of 
November,  in  solemn  intercession  before  God  on  behalf  of 
missions,  and  especially  that  the  Lord  would  thrust  forth 
labourers  into  His  harvest,  India,  China,  and  Japan, .  Africa 
and  Oceania,  have  received  from  the  United  Kingdom  and 
the  United  States  hundreds  of  the  student  volunteers  who, 
as  when  Judson  and  his  followers  reproached  the  Church 
of  their  day,  are  pressing  to  be  sent  to  the  front  of  the 
battle  faster  than  there  are  faith  and  self-denial  to  send 
them. 

The  one  aim — that  Christians  shall  make  Christians, 
and  the  best  agent — the  most  efficient  missionary  spirit- 
ually and  intellectually,  being  secured,  the  question  of 
methods  is  easier  of  solution.  Methods  must  follow  the 
example  and  the  command  of  Christ,  under  the  provi- 
dential guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  in  the  present 
stage  of  the  Church's  action  in  the  non-Christian  world, 
and  especially  in  India,  far  more  important  to  trust  the 
missionaries  it  has  sent,  and  to  follow  the  evolution  of 
Providence  without  weariness  in  well-doing  or  fickleness 
and  faithlessness  in  council,  than  to  be  guided  by  critics, 
destitute  alike  of  experience,  charity,  and  responsibility, 
however  plausible  their  profession. 

Before  He  sent  out  the  Twelve  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel  and  the  Seventy,  "  Jesus  went  about 
all  the  cities  and  villages  teaching  and  preaching  and 
healing"  (St.  Matthew  ix.  35).  These  three  words  re- 
appear in  all  the  records  of  His  last  missionary  charge, 
but  amplified  as  if  to  leave  unfettered  the  course  of  God's 
providence  and  the  manifold  activities  of  His  Spirit  in 
enabling  His  followers  to  do  greater  works  than  His  own 
when  upon  earth.     St.  Matthew's  is  the  widest — 

(1)  Disciple  all  nations  :   Maerjreva-are  irdvra  ra  Wvq. 

(2)  Teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I 
have  commanded  you  :  AtSao-Kovres  avroh  rrjpdv  irdvra  oVa 

(3)  Preach  the  gospel  to  the  whole  creation,  is  Mark's : 
Kyjpv^are  to  cvayyeXtov  Trdcrr)  ry  Kriaeu 

N 


178  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

(4)  Ye  are  witnesses,  is  Luke's  :  'YfxeLs  ea-re  fxaprvpes. 

The  conversion  of  India  has  been  carried  on  for  a  cen- 
tury by  methods  springing  out  of  the  application  of  the 
example  and  the  words  of  the  Lord  applied  to  its  very 
different  peoples  at  successive  times.  Seeking  the  super- 
natural conversion  of  the  individual,  the  first  missionaries 
naturally  adopted  the  two  methods  essential  and  common 
to  all  Christian  evangelising — they  (1)  translated  the 
Bible  into  the  language  of  the  people,  and  they  (2) 
preached  its  message  in  that  language.  Familiarity  with 
the  vernacular  should  be,  and  now  is,  insisted  on  in  the 
case  of  every  missionary  even  though  his  work  be  mainly 
through  English.  In  his  memorable  paper  on  Preaching 
to  the  Hindus,  read  to  the  General  Missionary  Con- 
ference of  India  held  at  Allahabad  in  1871,  Dr.  John 
Wilson,  declaring  the  evangelisation  of  India  to  be  in  some 
respects  the  greatest  distinctive  enterprise  yet  attempted 
by  the  Church  of  Christ,  defined  preaching  in  India  as 
"the  proclamation  of  the  gospel  in  many  forms,"  and 
the  mother  tongue  of  the  masses  as  the  key  to  every 
form.  English  has  rapidly  become  an  alternative  verna- 
cular language  with  thousands,  as  temporary  missionaries 
to  the  educated  classes  happily  know.  If  there  are  now 
any  absolute  anti- Anglicists  they  must  answer  the  question 
— Why  did  the  wisdom  of  Cod  choose  the  Greek  language 
for  the  New  Testament?  But  all  must  have  the  ver- 
nacular key  to  the  heart  of  India,  while  the  few  wield 
that  of  the  vernaculars  themselves,  the  classical  tongues 
and  literatures  of  the  Brahman,  the  Parsee,  the  Buddhist, 
and  the  Mohammedan. 

(3)  Teaching  follows  quick  on  translating  and  pieaching. 
The  children  of  converts  must  be  taught,  but  the  missionary 
soon  finds  that  it  is  only  the  young  whose  conscience  is 
quick  and  whose  intelligence  is  active.  While  neglecting 
no  inquirer,  he  learns  to  work  for  the  coming  generation, 
for  the  future  as  for  the  present.  While  earnestly 
seeking  to  persuade  the  individual  he  quickly  realises  that 
he  is  laying  the  foundation  of  a  Church,  of  a  spiritual 
community,  of  a  nation.     Then  he  is  arrested  by  caste, 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        179 

and  by  the  impossibility  of  reaching  one-half  of  the  whole 
people  except  through  their  fathers  and  husbands.  A 
generation  passes  before  the  door  of  the  zanana  or  the 
hareem  is  open  even  to  the  missionary's  wife.  Translating, 
preaching,  and  teaching  the  men  is  followed  in  the^  de- 
velopment in  the  Church  of  India  by  (4)  specially  trained 
women  visiting  the  women  in  their  own  homes.  The 
individual  becomes  the  family,  and  the  families  form 
churches  and  communities.  Then  the  evangelical  mission 
glides  into  (5)  the  new  method  of  healing  as,  like  the  Lord, 
it  goes  about  all  the  cities  and  villages.  Again,  it  is^  the 
men  who  are  first  reached  in  this  complex  Indian  society, 
but  for  them  the  State  provides  such  help  in  the  cities 
that  medical  missions  in  India  seek  more  and  more  the 
neglected  villagers.  Last  of  all,  Great  Britain  wakes  up, 
as  America  had  before  done,  to  the  sufferings  of  the  other 
sex,  and  the  great  necessity  is  woman  medical  missionaries, 
as  we  enter  on  the  second  century.  Of  170  medical  men 
with  a  full  British  qualification  in  the  mission  fields  of  the 
world  only  50  are  in  India.  Of  the  20  of  these  who  are 
women  16  are  in  India,  and  every  year  is  adding  to  the 
number.  The  gift  of  the  United  States  of  America  to  the 
women  of  India  is  far  greater  than  that. 

(6)  The  literary  method,  as  it  may  be  called,  the  use  of 
the  press  to  supply  pure  reading  to  the  young  Christian 
Church,  while  it  is  the  first  resorted  to  for  the  translation 
of  Holy  Scripture,  has  been  the  latest  so  far  as  the  publi- 
cation of  good  books  for  men,  women,  and  children  is  con- 
cerned. Through  the  Christian  Literature  Society,  the 
fruit  of  the  Sepoy  War  of  1857-58,  Dr.  Murdoch,  en- 
couraged by  Lord  Northbrook  when  Governor-General, 
has  produced  and  published  school  and  reading  books  in 
most  of  the  languages  of  India.  To  provide  good  text- 
books in  the  various  vernacular  languages  for  a  vast 
juvenile  population  is  a  very  difficult  matter.  For  the 
forty  years  since  Dalhousie's  action  this  was  left,  as  in  the 
West,  to  private  enterprise.  But  neither  morally  nor 
educationally  has  this  been  satisfactory.  Accordingly, 
seventeen  of  the  best  experts  in  Bengal,  of  whom  only  four 


180  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

are  Europeans,  now  form  a  central  text-book  committee, 
independent  alike  of  authors  and  publiskers,  and  these 
advise  the  Government  Department,  who  publish  an 
authorised  list.  The  plan  for  middle  schools  has  proved 
so  successful  that  it  has  been  extended  to  high  and 
primary  schools.  The  result  is  that  there  is  a  rush 
of  books  for  adjudication,  of  which  one-half  are  de- 
clared unsuitable  for  schools.  For  more  than  half  a 
century  the  Calcutta  School-Book  Society  has  most  use- 
fully served  as  the  chief  medium  for  distributing  books, 
but  Sir  Charles  Elliot,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  amal- 
gamated it  with  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful 
Literature,  which  receives  an  annual  grant  of  Rs.  2800. 
No  man  has  done  more  during  a  long  lifetime  for  pure 
literature  in  India,  Ceylon,  and  China  than  Dr.  Murdoch. 
The  Scottish  missions  in  Africa,  no  less  than  in  India,  and 
even  in  China,  and  wherever  they  are  established,  are 
always  marked  by  the  practical  features  of  the  educational 
and  industrial  training  of  the  converts.  Scotsmen  are 
teachers  and  are  captains  of  labour,  so  that  their  mission- 
aries create  Christian  communities  and  form  them  into 
Christian  nations. 

Perhaps  the  most  apparently  remarkable  result  of  the 
hundred  years  of  foreign  missions  is  seen,  on  their  literary 
side,  in  the  reduction  of  the  languages  of  the  peoples  to 
writing  and  grammatical  form,  and  in  the  translation  of 
the  Bible.  When  Care-y  settled  at  Serampore,  and  the 
Derby  editor,  William  Ward,  became  his  printer  colleague, 
the  Bible  was  translated  into  only  30  languages,  beginning 
with  the  Latin.  He  himself,  with  his  other  colleague, 
Marshman,  and  their  college  of  pundits,  made  or  edited 
nearly  40  more.  To-day  the  Bible  is  sold  for  a  trifle 
in  330  languages — a  gain  of  300  in  a  century.  What  that 
involves  and  means  the  greatest  secular  philologers  are  not 
slow  to  confess.  But  the  spiritual  results  it  is  impossible 
to  over-estimate.  The  time  has  not  yet  come  when  the 
native  Christians  themselves  shall  produce  translations  of 
the  Bible  more  idiomatic  and  national  than  those  made 
and  periodically  revised  by  foreign  missionary  scholars, 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MLSSION        181 

for  the  Wiclif  and  Tyndale  of  the  Church  of  India  have  not 
yet  arisen.  But  not  a  few  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  con- 
verts have  enriched  the  ethically  barren  literature  of  their 
people  with  works  that  will  live,  such  as  Imad-ud-din 
Lahiz,  D.D.,  with  twenty-seven  works  in  Hindi,  Hindu- 
stani, and  Persian;  Baba  Padmanji  and  Ganpatrao  Na- 
valkar  in  Marathi ;  Lai  Behari  Dey,  in  Bengali ;  and  many 
more  in  Tamil,  Kanarese,  and  Malayalam,  while  the  publi- 
cations in  English  as  the  lingua  franca  of  the  educated 
classes  are  innumerable. 

The  evangelical  missionaries  in  India  have  recently  de- 
fined their  own  methods  after  the  experience  of  a  century. 
In  1889  thirty -six  of  the  British,  American,  and  Danish 
agents  of  nine  of  the  principal  organisations  at  work  in 
South  India,  and  four  native  clergymen,  forming  the  Mad- 
ras Missionary  Conference,  sent  "an  open  letter  to  the 
Churches"  of  the  West.  This  communication,  extending 
to  sixteen  widely-printed  pages,  must  be  put  at  the  head 
of  all  the  literature  on  the  subject  up  to  the  present  time, 
in  ripeness  of  experience,  calmness  of  judgment,  wisdom 
of  suggestion,  accuracy  of  facts,  and  catholicity  .of  spirit. 
A  description  of  modern  Hinduism,  its  j)opular  worship 
and  as  a  system  of  thought,  followed  by  a  sketch  of  the 
present  condition  of  the  people,  leads  up  to  these  con- 
clusions : — The  conditions  of  mission  work  in  India  are 
intricate  and  peculiarly  difficult ;  the  elements  with  which 
Christianity  has  to  contend  are  most  various  and  power- 
ful ;  the  present  time,  marked  not  only  by  disintegration 
and  social  unrest,  but  by  struggles  after  reform,  pathetic 
and  hopeful  even  in  their  comparative  failure,  calls  for 
every  possible  sacrifice  and  for  wise  and  varied  eff*ort  for 
the  salvation  of  India.  "Since  the  Spirit  of  God  still 
abides  in  the  Church,  it  is  not  shut  up  to  a  mere  imitation 
of  methods  used  in  bygone  days  by  men,  however  saintly, 
successful,  or  illustrious.  God  is  with  us  also,  inspiring 
and  guiding  us  as  He  guided  our  fathers ;  and  by  placing 
us  in  such  new  untried  conditions  God  means  us,  and  the 
Church  through  us,  to  learn  new  lessons  and  apply  new 
methods.      As   missionaries   in    India    for    the    specific 


182  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

purpose  of  making  all  its  people  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
Christ,  we  judge  of  all  methods  by  the  degree  in  which 
they  contribute,  whether  ultimately  or  immediately,  to  the 
attainment  of  this  great  end.  Our  methods,  as  might  be 
expected,  are  various,  and  as  far  as  possible,  the  gospel  of 
Christ  is  presented  to  every  section  of  the  community." 
The  work  now  being  done  is  grouped  as  follows : — 

I.  MISSION  WORK  AMONG  THE  CHILDREN. 

Bo5's'  Schools. 

Girls'  Schools. 

Mixed  Schools  for  Boys  and  Girls. 

Sunday  Schools  for  Boys  and  Girls. 

II.  MISSION  WORK  AMONG  YOUNG  MEN. 

Higher  Education  in  Schools  and  Colleges. 

Bible  Classes  for  Young  Men. 

Special  Addresses  (English)  to  Young  Men. 

III.  MISSION  WORK  AMONG  THE  MASSES. 

Evangelistic  preaching  in  streets  and  halls. 
Evangelistic  preaching  in  circles  of  villages. 
Evangelistic  tours  and  visits  to  Hindu  festivals. 
House-to-house  visitation. 

IV.  MISSION  WORK  AMONG  WOMEN. 

Zanana  teaching. 

Special  Evangelistic  meetings  for  Women, 

The  work  of  Bible  Women. 

V.  MISSION  WORK  AMONG  THE  SICK. 

Medical  mission  work  by  means  of  Hospitals  and  Dis- 
pensaries. 
Medical  mission  work  in  Zananas. 
Visitation  of  the  Sick  in  Hospitals. 

VI.  MISSION  WORK  BY  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE. 

The  Bible  Society. 

The  Religious  Tract  Society, 

The  Christian  Literature  Society. 

Sale  of  Bibles  and   other  books  by  Colporteurs  and  at 

Depots. 
Distribution  of  Tracts  and  Handbills, 
Reading  Rooms. 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        183 

VII.  WORK  AMONG  NATIVE  CHRISTIANS. 

Preaching  and  pastoral  oversight. 

Sunday  Schools  for  Christian  Children. 

Meetings  for  united  prayer. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 

Institutions  for  the  training  of  Mission  Agents. 

"In  all  these  methods  there  is  no  rigidity,  nor  do  we 
hold  the  view  that  we  have  reached  finality.  We  welcome 
wise  suggestion  whether  coming  from  without  or  within. 
Of  the  methods  now  employed,  we  thankfully  affirm  that 
every  one  of  them  has  been  owned  of  God  in  the  salva- 
tion of  Hindus.  To  recent  criticisms  of  Indian  mission 
work  in  which  its  failure  has  been  alleged,  we  do  not 
think  it  needful  to  reply,  since  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
India  is  visible  enough. 

"  In  educational  attainments,  and  in  morality,  the  rapidly 
increasing  Christian  community  is  well  known  to  be  in 
advance  of  all  other  sections  of  the  people  of  India. 
Though  we  gratefully  acknowledge  the  success  which  has 
been  gained,  we  attach  but  little  importance  to  count  of 
heads,  believing  that  the  moral  test  is  higher  than  the 
arithmetical.  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with 
observation,  and  to  us  there  are  many  signs,  subtle  and 
unobtrusive,  which  assure  us,  more  certainly  than  any 
figures  on  a  register,  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  *  wins  its 
widening  way.' 

"  We  have  noted  an  outcry  in  some  quarters  against 
the  work  of  higher  education,  but  knowing  its  value  in 
India  at  the  present  time,  we  are  convinced  that  Provi- 
dence points  out  most  clearly  the  duty  of  effectively 
maintaining  it.  The  withdrawal  from  the  mission  field  of 
this  agency,  which  after  all  absorbs  but  a  small  fraction 
of  our  numerical  strength,  would  leave  a  blank,  for  the 
filling  up  of  which  no  hostile  critic  has  yet  made  any 
practical  suggestion. 

"While  we  place  the  spiritual  gifts  of  all  mission 
agents,  their  conversion  to  God,  their  evident  call  to  and 
spiritual  fitness  for  Christian  work,  above  all  other  qualifi- 


184  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

cations,  we  desire  also  to  lay  stress  on  those  other  attain- 
ments without  which  Christianity  receives  only  an 
imperfect  representation.  Since  the  work  of  European 
missionaries  in  India  must  continue  mainly  to  be  that 
of  teaching,  inspiring,  moulding  and  shaping  the  Christian 
community,  and  guiding  its  methods  of  work  as  well  as  of 
preaching  to  non-Christians,  we  are  convinced  that  men 
possessing  the  highest  spiritual  and  intellectual  gifts  must 
always  be  sent  forth,  and  that  any  reduction  of  the 
number  of  such  men  would  be  a  calamity. 

"  In  India,  the  question  of  the  salary  of  Europeans  has 
not  been  raised.  We  deem  it  unnecessary  to  refer  to  it 
beyond  stating  that  in  our  opinion  the  allowances  now 
granted  are  by  no  means  excessive,  but  fairly  reasonable, 
and  that  they  are  in  no  way  superior  on  the  average  to 
what  it  is  thought  prudent  and  even  necessary  that 
ministers  should  have  at  home.  No  class  of  Englishmen 
in  India,  not  even  excepting  artisans,  receives  such  small 
allowances  as  the  missionaries  of  the  great  Societies." 

The  most  hopeful  movement  in  Western  Christendom 
is  due  to  a  new  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  non- 
Christian  peoples.  The  section  which  both  in  and  outside 
of  the  Churches  corresponds  to  the  Pietists  of  last  century, 
no  longer  satisfied  with  Home  Missions  alone,  or  selfishly 
wrapt  up  in  frames  and  feelings  which  stop  short  of  active 
service  and  catholic  intercession,  seeks  the  conversion  of 
the  dark  races.  Africa  and  China  chiefly  rejoice  in  the 
results.  India,  with  its  unique  Brahmanical  and  Musal- 
man  problems,  its  claims  as  a  British  dependency,  and  its 
advantages  for  assaulting  the  strongholds  of  Asiatic  un- 
belief, has  not  yet  shared  proportionally  in  the  new  mis- 
sionary activity.  To  some  the  evangelisation  of  its  peoples 
through  the  disintegration  and  destruction  of  their  hoary 
religious  and  social  systems,  seems  to  have  suffered  from 
the  spiritual  but  inexperienced  critics.  Missionaries  in 
India  are  doing  the  Church's  most  difficult  work  with  fine 
courage,  intelligent  faith,  and  devoted  obedience,  and  they 
expect  the  faithful  intercession,  the  loyal  support,  and  the 
loving  sympathy  of  those  whose  representatives  or  sub- 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        185 

stitutes  they  are.  It  is  the  whole  Church  which  is  working 
through  them.  While  resenting  criticism  which,  alike  in 
its  terms  and  its  spirit,  is  of  the  kind  condemned  by 
the  Lord  in  His  untempered  disciples,  the  missionary 
Churches  and  Societies  have  used  it  to  review  their  methods 
in  the  conversion  of  the  peoples  of  India.  More  par- 
ticularly in  England,  the  Church  Missionary  Society, 
representing  two -thirds  of  the  Church  of  England,  the 
Wesleyan  Missionary  Society,  and  the  London  Missionary 
Society,  have  thus  vindicated  their  position  and  their 
agents. 

The  discussion  of  the  past  four  years  has  narrowed 
itself  to  what  has  been  called  Educational  Missions,  to  the 
administration  of  which  the  Presbyterian  Churches  in 
Scotland  have  been  called  by  national  character  and 
historical  providence,  though  the  English  Baptist,  Carey, 
led  the  way  in  this  as  in  all  the  chief  methods.  In  1888 
the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  sent  out  two  deputies  to 
report  on  the  missions  begun  by  Duff  and  Wilson  in 
India.  In  1889  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland, 
which  twenty-five  years  before  had  been  roused  by  Dr. 
Norman  Macleod's  report  of  his  visit,  published  the 
opinions  of  eighty -four  experts  on  this  subject.  Dr. 
Macleod's  last  words  to  his  Church  were  these, — "The 
special  characteristic  of  the  Scottish  nation  and  the  special 
gift  of  the  Scottish  Church  seem  to  be  in  the  pathway  of 
education.  ...  If  the  non-religious  schools  and  colleges 
be  left  alone  they  will  eventually  leave  the  bulk  of  the 
educated  portion  of  the  natives  either  without  any  faith 
in  God  or  without  any  fear  of  God.  Whereas,  if 
Christian  schools  and  colleges  flourish  alongside  of  secular 
ones,  this  demoralising  effect  will  be  checked,  for  a  true 
and  influential  and  reverent  faith  will  then  be  seen  to  be 
compatible  with  the  highest  education." 

Of  these  experts  the  most  authoritative  is  Sir  William 
Muir.  He  declares  ^  that  he  values  the  Christian  colleges 
for  their  results  in  "immediate  conversion  to  the  faith," 

^  See  EdvMitional  Missions  in  India.  Revised  Special  Report  to  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  May  1890,  p.  213. 


186  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

and  that  it  would  be  a  calamity  for  India  if  these  were 
withdrawn.  But,  besides  that,  "  the  country  has  by  them 
been  inoculated  with  Christian  sentiment,"  and  it  was  the 
Scots  schools  and  colleges  which  first  called  forth  the 
sympathies  of  Hindus  towards  Occidental  learning,  and  in 
doing  so  gave  them  a  bent  towards  Christianity.  "It  is 
our  duty  to  maintain  them,"  concludes  one  who,  while  he 
is  himself  at  the  head  of  all  Arabic  scholars  in  the  English 
language,  has,  during  half  a  century's  career  in  the  highest 
ofl&ces  in  India,  England,  and  Scotland,  been  identified 
with  the  evangelical  and  evangelistic  school.  An  authority 
of  a  similar  type  is  the  great  Marquis  of  Dalhousie's  cousin, 
the  Hon.  Sir  Henry  Ramsay,  C.B.,  who  has  spent  his  life 
as  an  official  in  the  Himalayan  province  of  Kumaon.  He 
has  seen  the  result  of  the  labours  of  Dr.  Duff",  not  only  in 
Bengal  but  in  Kumaon,  and  all  over  the  North-Western 
Provinces,  during  an  experience  of  fifty  years.  "  The  truths 
of  Christianity  and  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ  alone 
have  been  made  known  widely ;  faith  in  Hinduism  has 
been  shaken,  and  the  superstitions  connected  with  it  are 
only  maintained  through  the  influence  of  old  pundits  and 
leading  men  who  have  had  no  school  education."  At  the 
head  of  all  the  purely  evangelistic  missionaries  in  North 
India  is  the  Eev.  Robert  Clark,  of  Amritsar,  of  the  Church 
Missionary  Society.  Like  Sir  Henry  Ramsay,  he  has  seen 
results  as  few  have  lived  to  see  them.  He  would  strengthen 
the  missionary  colleges  instead  of  giving  them  up,  and 
would  encourage  those  who  are  in  charge  of  them.  The 
non-Christian  teachers  in  them  he  would  not  prematurely 
discontinue.  "  There  are  many  good  Hindu  and  Moham- 
medan teachers  vrho  have  been  trained  in  Christian  truth, 
and  are  doing  as  good  service  to  us  as  ever  Hiram's  car- 
penters and  servants  did  in  the  building  of  the  Temple  in 
the  days  of  David  and  Solomon." 

But  of  all  the  more  recent  experts  consulted,  the 
authority  of  none  stands  so  high  as  that  of  the  late  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  the  Punjab,  Sir  Charles  U.  Aitchison, 
LL.D.  One  of  the  first  to  enter  the  Bengal  Civil 
Service  by  competition,  after  a  brilliant  training  in  the 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        187 

Theological  as  well  as  the  Arts  Faculty,  he  was  selected 
by  Lord  Canning  and  placed  above  many  of  his  seniors 
as  Foreign  Under-Secretary  on  the  close  of  the  Mutiny 
campaigns.  His  cautious  judgment,  his  high  character, 
and  his  unique  experience,  made  him  for  the  next  quarter 
of  a  century  the  trusted  guide  of  every  Governor-General 
(except  the  author  of  the  Second  Afghan  War)  in  the 
foreign  policy  of  our  Indian  Empire.  Like  the  Lawrences 
and  the  rest  of  the  old  Punjab  school,  he  never  concealed 
his  own  belief,  which  he  adorned  by  unceasing  private 
support  of  all  good  objects,  native  and  British,  of  what- 
ever reformed  sort.  No  man  in  India  in  the  last  forty 
years  has  had  such  a  career,  or  has  so  well  borne  its 
honours  in  all  modesty  and  meekness.  His  opinion,  on 
whatever  side  of  this  question,  might  be  accepted  as  the 
most  influential.  This  is  how  he  writes  : — "  God  forbid 
that  I  should  undervalue  preaching  and  evangelising.  I 
believe  India  is  only  waiting  for  some  native  St.  Paul  to 
turn  by  thousands  to  the  Lord.  But  the  more  active  you 
are  in  your  schools  the  better  you  will  be  prepared  for 
that  day  when  it  comes.  Even  now,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
although  statistics  of  conversion  are  no  true  test  of  the 
value  of  missionary  work,  the  most  numerous  converts 
and  the  best  are  made  in  the  schools."  "  It  is  more  than 
ever  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  go  forward  in  its  educa- 
tional policy : " — 

"  In  my  judgment  the  value  of  educational  missionary  institutions, 
in  tlie  present  transition  state  of  Indian  opinion,  can  hardly  be  over- 
rated. The  importance  of  mission  schools  and  colleges  is  even  greater 
now  than  when  Duff  initiated  his  education  policy,  and  converted  a 
reluctant  General  Assembly  to  his  views.  His  argument  then  was, 
that  Hinduism  is  so  wedded  to  a  cosmogony  demonstrably  false,  that 
"Western  education  of  any  kind  became  a  direct  missionary  agency, 
effective  at  least  in  overthrowing  the  false  religions.  Experience  has 
amply  justified  his  views — so  much  so  that,  in  the  work  of  destroy- 
ing the  heathen  beliefs,  the  Government  secular  schools,  the  railways 
and  the  telegraphs,  have  done  as  effective  work  as  the  missionaries 
themselves.  Educated  Hindu  society  is  honeycombed,  with  unbelief, 
and  the  gi-eat  question  of  the  day  in  India  is,  AYhat  shall  take  the 
place  of  the  broken  gods  ?    Hence  a  grooving  Buddhist  optimism.    Hence 


188  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

the  revival  of  Vedantic  deism.  Hence  the  Brahmo  Somaj  and  other 
theistic  societies.  Hence,  too,  the  inquiry  and  searching  into  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  which  go  on  in  India  to  an  extent  which  those 
who  ignore  missions  have  no  conception  of.  Now,  if  ever,  is  the 
Church's  opportunity.  If  the  breach  that  has  been  made  is  filled  up — 
if,  in  place  of  Hinduism  we  have  agnosticism,  or  even  a  positive  but 
unchristian  theistic  belief  with  which  physical  science  is  not  necessarily 
in  antagonism — the  Christian  Church  vnll  have  to  do  all  the  sapping 
and  mining  over  again  ;  while,  instead  of  the  crumbling  old  fortresses 
of  heathenism,  we  shall  have  in  front  of  us  strong  fortifications,  held 
and  defended  with  weapons  of  precision  forged  in  our  own  arsenals. 
It  is  of  primary  importance  now,  just  at  this  time  when  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  itself  is  looking  anxiously  round  for  some  means  of  sup- 
plementing the  deficiencies  of  its  own  secular  system  of  education,  to 
get  hold  of  the  youth  of  India  and  impregnate  them  with  Christian 
truth.  They  are  the  generation  in  whose  hands  the  immediate  future 
of  India  will  lie,  and  the  importance  of  bringing  them  under  direct 
Christian  influences  is  beyond  all  calculation.  AYe  want  institutions 
like  the  Cambridge  Mission  College  at  Delhi,  the  American  Mission 
College  at  Lahore,  and  the  Established  Church  and  Free  Church  Insti- 
tutions at  Calcutta  multiplied  over  the  country." 

Among  the  other  writers  on  this  side  were  such  mission- 
aries of  other  Churches  as  Dr.  Mackichan,  of  Bombay ; 
Bishop  Caldwell,  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel ;  Mr.  Eouse,  of  the  Baptist  Society ;  Dr.  William 
Miller,  of  IMadras ;  Dr.  E.  W.  Parker,  of  the  American 
Methodist  Episcopal  Society ;  and  Dr.  Shoolbred,  of  the 
United  Presbyterian  Mission.  The  evidence  is  completed 
by  translations  from  two  native  newspapers.  The  Arya 
Patrika,  weekly  organ  of  the  Lahore  Aiya  (Theistic) 
Somaj,  writes  thus : — "  Education  work  may  be  very 
expensive,  but  the  missionary  knows  that  there  is  no 
other  work  so  helpful  in  gaining  converts.  The  Indian 
mind  has  well-nigh  shaken  off  the  torpor  of  ages,  and  will 
no  longer  receive  as  gospel  truth  what  it  has  not  first 
thoroughly  examined."  The  Oudh  Ahhar  (Lucknow),  a 
non  -  Christian  vernacular  paper,  has  "  never  known 
missionaries  compel  any  one  to  become  a  Christian,  yet 
would  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  Bible  teaching  should 
create    a    tendency   in    our   Indian   youths   to    embrace 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        189 

Christianity  in  the  absence  of  any  moral  training  in  our 
homes." 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Established  Church  of 
Scotland  resolved  to  maintain  its  educational  institutes  in 
India  on  the  same  principles  as  heretofore,  and  to  make 
them  thoroughly  efficient ;  but  it  also  resolved  "  to  make 
more  direct  efforts  toward  the  training  of  a  native  ministry 
for  India." 

Of  the  two  Free  Church  of  Scotland's  deputies  Professor 
Lindsay,  D.D.,  spent  a  complete  year  in  India,  travelling 
over  its  length  and  breadth  south  of  the  Punjab,  and  in- 
specting many  missions  besides  the  Scottish.  The  Report  ^ 
shows  an  amount  of  common  sense,  a  knowledge  of 
business,  a  fertility  of  resource,  and  a  kindly  frankness 
rare  in  such  literature.  Every  detail  of  a  vast  organisa- 
tion, financial  and  property  as  well  as  educational  and 
spiritual,  is  considered.  The  Free  Church  of  Scotland  con- 
trols the  expenditure  of£100,000a  year  on  purely  Foreign 
Missions,  of  which  £70,000  is  raised  in  Scotland,  and  the 
rest  is  derived,  chiefly  in  India,  from  European  and 
native  contributions,  and  from  fees  and  grants-in-aid. 
The  four  Indian  colleges  now  meet  all  their  expenditure 
locally,  only  the  ordained  missionaries'  salaries  being  sent 
out,  and  these  partly  from  endowments.  But  the  colleges 
have  been  in  the  past  the  centres  from  which  converts,  at 
first  Brahmans  by  birth,  have  carried  the  new  light  into 
the  surrounding  villages  and  districts,  and  into  the 
missions  of  other  Churches  and  societies,  which  took  up 
new  provinces  as  these  were  annexed  to  the  Empire. 
Has  this  later  process,  now  marked  as  "  evangelistic,"  not 
been  restrained  by  spending  too  much  of  the  available 
funds  on  the  "  educational "  work  ?  Has  proportional 
attention  been  paid  to  the  aboriginal  tribes,  Santal  and 
other  ?  Have  the  missionaries  not  continued  so  long  to 
concentrate  their  energies  on  the  great  cities  as  to  neglect 
the  multitudinous  villages?      'V\^ere  the  village  people 

^  The  India  Mission  arid  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland :  being  Report 
of  tlie  Deputies  to  India  in  1888-89,  Opinion  of  the  Missionaries  in 
1890,  and  Minute  of  the  Foreign  Missions  Committee  1891. 


190  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

are  cared  for,  have  not  the  so-called  educational  and 
the  evangelistic  sets  of  missionaries  failed  to  assist  each 
other  1 

The  General  Assembly  referred  the  Eeport  to  their  India 
missionaries  for  criticism.  Thirty  of  these — almost  the 
whole  number — preachers  in  the  native  languages,  and 
medical  men  as  well  as  teachers  in  the  English  colleges, 
sent  home  a  joint -letter,  agreeing  in  many  of  the 
practical  conclusions,  but  remarking  "  a  certain  hesitation 
or  ambiguity"  which  appeared  to  them  to  run  through 
the  whole  Report.  Does  it  mean  that  "  the  Scottish  Church 
somehow  blundered  into  the  course  of  bringing  its  mis- 
sionary work  to  bear  on  the  Hindus,  strictly  so  called, 
though  it  judged  correctly  that  in  dealing  with  them  educa- 
tion was  the  best,  or  perhaps  the  only  efficient  method 
it  could  use"?  Or  is  this  intended  to  be  the  general 
tenor  of  the  Report  1  "  There  was  a  providential  guidance 
of  the  Scottish  Church  when  she  resolved  to  deal  with 
that  great  central  core  of  the  people  of  India  on  which 
Christianity  had  made  almost  no  impression,"  in  1830. 
"  The  work,  which  is  chiefly  preparatory  in  its  proper 
nature,  has  providentially  developed  so  as  to  leave 
scarcely  any  time  or  strength  to  those  engaged  in  it  for 
that  other  side  of  the  work  which  is  its  indispensable 
complement."  The  two,  educational  and  evangelistic, 
"  are  in  no  sense  opposed,  but  are  necessary  parts  of  one 
united  whole.  Each  is  to  be  so  conducted  as  to  take 
advantage  of  or  help  the  other."  Many  of  the  mission- 
aries individually  write  on  the  same  lines ;  while  Mr.  A. 
H.  L.  Eraser,  the  able  civilian  who  is  a  Commissioner  in 
the  Central  Provinces,  makes  a  powerful  contribution  to 
the  discussion,  leading  to  the  same  conclusion. 

The  Free  Church  of  Scotland's  General  Assembly  in 
1891  closed  the  discussion  by  a  series  of  resolutions  which 
were  admitted  to  be  at  once  just  to  the  historic  past  of  the 
Scots  Missions  in  India,  and  adequate  to  the  needs  of  the 
present  order  of  things,  while  they  express  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  the  older  missionaries  of  all  classes  and 
methods  there : — 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MISSION        191 

"(1)  That  the  Church  was  wisely  guided  when,  in  reliance  on 
Divine  help,  it  resolved,  through  the  agency  of  Christian  educational 
mission  work,  to  deal  with  that  great  central  core  of  the  people  of 
India  on  which  Christianity  had,  up  to  that  time,  made  small  im- 
pression ;  that  this  educational  work  always  deserved,  and  still 
deserves,  the  support  of  the  Church  ;  and  that  missionaries  who  are 
engaged  in  that  work  ought  to  have  the  sympathy  and  the  prayers  of 
every  one  who  has  at  heart  the  cause  of  Christ  in  India. 

**  (2)  That  this  educational  work,  as  the  missionaries  have  all  along 
insisted,  always  needed,  and  now  more  than  ever  needs,  to  be  supple- 
mented and  completed  by  the  simple  earnest  proclamation  of  saving 
truth,  and  by  earnest  personal  dealing  with  individuals,  carried  on  in 
the  districts  more  immediately  under  the  influence  of  the  prceparaMo 
evangelica  of  the  educational  work  ;  and  that  the  two  sides  of  the 
work  should  always  be  in  visible  connection  with  each  other. 

*'(3)  That,  as  the  evangelistic  side  of  the  work  has  not  been  de- 
veloped pari  passu  with  the  other,  the  committee  regard  it  as  necessary, 
while  in  no  way  sanctioning  anything  that  may  tend  to  impair  the 
efficiency  of  the  educational  work,  specially  to  foster  the  evangelistic 
operations,  and  therefore  resolve,  in  accordance  with  minute  119  of 
January  1887,  still  to  limit  to  the  present  amount  the  resources  spent 
on  the  educational  institutions,  and  to  devote  to  the  evangelistic  side 
whatever  increase  of  contributions  may  be  received,  and  any  saving 
that  may  be  effected  in  connection  with  educational  work  without 
detriment  to  its  efficiency." 

In  the  division  of  labour,  as  well  as  of  area,  which  is 
more  than  ever  desirable  in  the  non-Christian  regions  of 
the  world,  and  especially  in  India,  the  two  Scottish 
Churches,  and  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  also  as  it 
develops  in  Eajpootana,  will  thus  keep  the  lead  in  evan- 
gelising the  educated  classes,  and  in  training  native 
ministers  and  teachers,  by  the  educational  method. 
China  is  already  calling  for  such  a  method,  and  its  appli- 
cation to  Africa  on  industrial  lines  has  wrought  the  best 
results  in  the  creation  of  native  churches  and  the  forma- 
tion of  many  of  the  Kafir  people  into  Christian  com- 
munities. 

Sir  Charles  Bernard,  formerly  a  Government  Secretary 
and  Chief  Commissioner  in  India,  suggested  in  this 
discussion  the  best  practical  means  for  meeting  any  linger- 
ing objection  to  educational  missions   drawn   from   the 


192  THE  CONVERSION  OP  INDIA 

present  neutral  university  system  of  India.  So  long  as 
missionaries  like  Duff,  Wilson,  and  Bishop  Cotton  con- 
trolled the  text-books  and  regulations  of  the  University 
Syndicates,  the  Christian  colleges  had  fair  play.  Let 
the  missionary  organisations  now  unite  to  form  a 
Christian  university,  such  as  Government  would  legisla- 
tively establish,  just  as  the  Punjab  University  wa» 
created  from  the  other  side,  to  test  purely  Oriental  learn- 
ing. The  cost  of  an  examining  university  which  made 
Christian  teaching  compulsory,  while  securing  a  high 
average  standard  in  all  secular  subjects,  need  not  be  great 
at  first,  and  could  be  met  by  fees,  and  ultimately  by 
endowments,  as  the  Christian  Church  continues  to  grow 
in  numbers,  and  its  native  members  to  distance  their 
Hindu  and  Mohammedan  fellows  in  influence,  position, 
and  wealth,  which  they  are  fast  doing.  Union  in  a  com- 
plete form,  with  the  independence  of  the  affiliated 
colleges,  would  thus  be  secured.  A  Christian  university 
would  solve  the  difficulties,  and  remove  most  of  the 
objections  of  inexperienced  people  to  educational-evangel- 
istic missions. 

What  Dr.  John  Wilson  and  his  colleague,  Eobert 
Nesbit,  wrote  ^  from  Bombay,  when  approving  of  the 
despatch  of  1854  which  created  the  university  system, 
more  than  ever  demands  observance  by  their  successors : 
The  despatch  "  will  aid  the  missionary  institutions  in  that 
department  of  their  labours  which  embraces  secular  know- 
ledge. But  missionaries  and  their  supporters  must  vow 
before  God,  and  man  not  to  dilute  or  diminish  their 
religious  instruction  in  their  seminaries  on  this  account. 
.  .  .  The  evangelistic  feature  of  our  educational  establish- 
ments must  be  preserved." 

The  present  writer,  while  still  in  the  inexperience  of 
youth  forty  years  ago,  but  after  two  years'  residence  in 
Bengal,  was  not  friendly  to  the  educational  method  of 
missions.  But  the  study  of  India  on  the  spot  for  twenty 
years  thereafter,  and  the  careful  observation  of  all  the 
facts  and  controversies  since,  have  led  him  to  this  con- 
*  Life,  page  531,  first  edition,  London  (John  Murray). 


THE  METHODS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  xMISSION        193 

elusion  :  The  most  powerful  method  for  the  conversion 
of  India,  and  through  India,  of  Southern  Asia,  is  that  of 
educational -evangelising  directed  by  spiritual  men  and 
supplemented  by  preaching  and  healing.  Some  of  the 
ablest  and  most  hard-working  missionaries  in  the  East  are 
the  educational.  While  they  ought  to  be  stronger,  like  their 
predecessors,  in  their  influence  on  the  university  syndi- 
cates, to  withdraw  their  colleges  from  affiliation  would  be 
to  confess  defeat  and  abandon  the  most  hopeful  youth 
of  India  to  unmitigated  antichristian  influences.  The 
pressure  of  the  university  may  be  such,  that  the  present 
staff  in  each  college  is  too  busy  to  bring  to  bear  on  the 
students  the  same  personal  influence  and  individually 
persuasive  appeals,  by  which  their  predecessors  led  into 
the  Kingdom  the  earlier  generation  of  remarkable  converts. 
The  remedy  is  to  be  found  in  strengthening  the  staff  of 
each  college  for  this  end  rather  than  in  appointing  out- 
siders to  do  evangelistic  work  among  the  students.  It  is 
the  personal  fascination  exercised  by  the  able  Christian 
teacher  that  the  Spirit  of  God  uses  to  draw  his  students 
to  Christ.  What  Wilson  and  Nesbit  wrote  in  1855 
should  be  pondered  now — "For  our  systematic  Biblical 
reading  and  lecturing  we  can  maintain  a  due  place  by 
insisting  on  the  conditions  of  our  missionary  institutions. 
It  is  a  fact  that  the  eagerness  for  graduation  is  a  tempta- 
tion to  many  young  men  to  confine  their  attention  to  the 
studies  prescribed  by  the  universities.  But  what  would 
be  the  consequence  if,  instead  of  opposing  that  temptation, 
we  were  to  withdraw  from  the  arena  ?  ^     What  would  soon 

^  The  Jesuits,  who  always  seek  the  control  of  education,  have 
vigorous  aided  colleges  in  Bombay  and  Calcutta.  The  present  Pope 
has  appealed  to  Latin  Christendom  for  a  wide  extension  of  educational 
institutions  as  a  means  of  proselytisra.  On  the  27th  June  1893,  a 
Papal  Encyclical  was  issued  on  the  subject  of  the  institutions  for  native 
Catholic  clergy  in  India.  The  Pope  demonstrates  the  necessity  for 
the  appointment  of  native  priests,  especially  in  cases  where  mission- 
aries are  unable  to  penetrate  into  the  interior  in  countries  such  as  Japan 
and  China.  The  Encyclical  adds  that  the  Vicars  Apostolic  had 
received  authority  to  found  colleges  in  India,  and  had  arranged  for 

Q 


194  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

be  the  character  of  the  universities  themselves?  What 
would  soon  be  the  state  of  the  educated  mind  of  India 
which  rules  the  native  world  1  What —  ?  I  may  go 
on  for  hours  suggesting  most  lamentable  consequences." 

each  diocese  to  have  its  own  Consistory,  but  want  of  means  prevented 
the  full  realisation  of  the  scheme.  On  the  other  hand,  the  British 
Government  and  various  Protestant  societies  were  constantly  expend- 
ing money  in  establishing  colleges.  The  Pope  concludes  by  exhort- 
ing the  Catholics  of  Europe  to  co-operate  with  him  in  the  work  of 
founding  Indian  seminaries. 


IX 

THE   RESULTS   OF  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS  TO   INDIA 

"  Then  saith  He  unto  His  disciples,  The  harvest  truly  is  plenteous,  hvi 
the  labourers  are  few." — St.  Matt.  ix.  37. 

The  imagination  of  the  most  Christian  as  well  as  that  of 
the  most  scientific  student  of  India  has  always  failed  to 
realise  comparatively  the  relation,  in  point  of  magnitude 
and  density,  of  the  vast  Peninsula  of  India  ^  and  its  peoples 
to  the  rest  of  the  world  and  of  the  human  race.  Till 
Christendom,  and  especially  its  English-speaking  majority, 
knows  the  facts,  the  duty  laid  upon  it  of  preaching  the 
gospel  to  every  creature  cannot  be  adequately  faced. 
Geography  is  the  most  valuable  of  the  allies  of  Foreign 
Missions,  which  have  done,  in  return,  so  much  for  the 
development  and  elevation  of  the  most  Interesting  and 
comprehensive  of  all  the  sciences.  Missionary  geography 
is,  however,  only  beginning  to  win  for  itself  that  place  in 
the  education  of  the  public  and  the  Sunday  schools,  in  the 
curriculum  of  the  universities  and  theological  colleges,  and 
in  the  instruction  of  the  Church  in  prayer-meetings  and 
preaching,  which  it  must  hold  before  Christian  people, 
"lifting  up  their  eyes,"  ^  share  the  Lord's  infinite  compassion 
and  self -devoted  service  for  the  multitudes  "scattered 
abroad  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd." 

^  See   The  Geography  of    British  India :    Political  and    PhysicaZ 
(Student's  Manual).     John  Murray,  1882. 
2  St  John's  Gospel,  iv.  34-38. 


196 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 


As  the  most  cautious  and  reliable  figures  showing  the 
area  and  population  of  the  globe,  we  take  those  submitted 
by  Mr.  E.  Kavenstein,  F.R.G.S.,  to  the  British  Association 
at  Leeds  in  September  1890.  We  bring  them  down  to 
September  1893  :— 


The  World's  Population  in  1893. 


Europe  • 
Asia  ,  • 
Africa  • 

Australasia . 
North  America 
South  America 


Population. 

381,200,000 

854,000,000 

127,000,000 

4,730,000 

95,250,000 

38,420,000 

1,500,000, 000^ 


Average 

Increase  per  Decade. 

to  a  Sq.  Mile. 

Per  Cent. 

101 

8-7 

57 

6 

11 

10 

1-4 

30 

U 

20 

5 

16 

81 


Cultivable  Area  of  the  Globe  (in  square  miles). 


Fertile 
Region. 

Steppe. 

Desert. 

Total.2 

Europe 

Asia   . 

Africa          .         . 

Australasia 

North  America    . 

South  America    . 

Total  . 

2,888,000 
9,280,000 
5,760,000 
1,167.000 
4,946,000 
4,228,000 

667,000 
4,280,000 
3,528,000 
1,507,000 
1,405,000 
2,564,000 

1,200,000 

2,226,000 

614,000 

95,000 

45,000 

3,555,000 
14,710,000 
11,514,000 
3,288,000 
6,446,000 
6,837,000 

28,269,000 

13,901,000 

4,180,000 

46,350,000 

The  Church  will  enter  on  the  twentieth  century  in  a 
few  years,  with  the  population  increased  to  1587  millions. 
At  the  same  rate  in  the  year  1950  there  will  be  2332 
millions,  and  in  the  year  2000  there  will  be  3426  millions. 
In  the  year  2072,  or  only  180  years  hence,  there  will  be 
5977  millions.  That  seems  far  to  look  forward,  but  in  the 
history  of  the  Church,  as  of  the  human  race,  it  is  a  short 
period.     One  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago  William  IIL 

*  Exclusive  of  300,000  in  the  Polar  Regions. 

•  Exclusive  of  the  Polar  Regions,  4,888,800  square  miles. 


RESULTS  OP  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA 


19; 


was  still  king,  and  Foreign  Missions  from  English-speaking 
people  could  not  be  said  to  exist.  The  longer  every 
Christian  delays  to  take  a  part  in  the  evangelisation  of  the 
dark  races,  the  greater  becomes  the  difficulty  of  bringing  in 
the  increasing  peoples.  War,  famine,  and  other  checks  to 
the  growth  of  population  may  reduce  the  normal  increase 
of  eight  per  cent  every  ten  years,  as  the  coming  century 
goes  on,  but  all  the  political  and  historical  facts  are 
against  this  probability  up  to  the  time  we  have  mentioned, 
when  economic  law  as  to  population  occupying  all  the 
cultivable  area  must  affect  the  result,  unless  checked  by 
new  discoveries  of  applied  physics. 

How  are  these  fifteen  hundred  millions  of  human 
beings  divided  as  to  religious  belief  and  worship  ?  Here 
we  have  less  scientific  certainty,  on  the  whole,  though  not 
for  the  peoples  under  Christian  governments.  Estimates 
hitherto  published  have  been  repeated  year  after  year,  and 
so  fail  to  take  account  of  the  extraordinary  increase  given 
to  the  Eeformed  Churches  Idj  two  causes — the  superior 
spawning-power  of,  and  the  rapid  colonising  extension  over 
fertile  waste  lands  by,  the  English-  and  German-speaking 
peoples  during  the  past  century.  Taking  into  account  the 
latest  figures  of  the  census  of  the  whole  British  Empire, 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  of  the  principal 
countries  of  Europe,  as  made  and  published  in  the  years 
1890-92,  and  adding  to  them  an  estimate  up  to  1893,  we 
have  this  as  the  result,  in  round  numbers : — 


Christianity  and  "World-Religions,  1893. 


Reformed  Church  . 
Roman  Catholic  . 
Greek  and  Eastern 

Professmg  Christians 

Jews  .  .  , 
Mohammedans  . 
Heathens      .        . 


200,000,000 
195,600,000 
105,000,000 

500,600,000 

8,000,000 
180,000,000 
812,000,000 


N<m-Christians 

The  Human  Race: 


.     1,000,000,000 

:  1,500, 600,000. 


198  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

SmceCdiYeys Enquiry,'^  written  in  1786,  the  proportion  of 
Christians  in  the  doubled  population  of  the  world  has 
risen  from  one  in  six  to  one  in  three. 

What  are  the  two  hundred  millions  of  the  Eeformed 
Church,  historically  called  Protestants  and  professedly 
evangelical,  doing  for  the  conversion  of  the  thousand 
millions  of  non-Christians  ?  We  do  not  take  into  account 
their  efforts,  vigorous  and  necessary,  especially  in  the 
lands  of  Asia  and  North  Africa  occupied  by  the  Eastern 
Churches  for  whom  Americans  do  much,  nor  any  labours 
for  Christians  by  Christians  of  a  purer  faith  and  life. 
Leaving  out  of  account  also  the  many  wives  of  mission- 
aries who  are  represented  statistically  in  their  husbands, 
Eev.  J.  Yahl,  President  of  the  Danish  Missionary  Society, 
gives  us  these  results.^  We  accept  them  as  the  most 
accurately  compiled,  and  as  almost  too  cautiously  esti- 
mated where  estimate  is  unavoidable.  In  Turkey  and 
Egypt  only  work  among  the  Musalmans  is  reckoned. 


Income  (English  Money) 
Missionaries  . 

Do. ,  unmarried  ladies 
Native  ministers     .         • 
Other  native  helpers 
Communicants        .         . 

We  abstain  from  estimating  in  detail  the  results  for  1892, 
as  they  are  about  to  appear,  and  still  less  for  the  year 
1893,  but  experts  can  do  this  for  themselves.  This  only 
we  would  say,  that  the  number  of  native  communicants 
added  in  those  two  years  has  been  very  large,  especially 
in  India.     Allowing  for  that,  we  should  place  them  now 

^  An  Enquiry  into  the  Obligation  of  Christians  to  use  Means  for  the 
Conversion  of  the  Heathens,  in  which  the  Religious  State  of  the  Different 
Nations  of  the  World,  c&c,  are  considered.  Leicester,  Ann  Ireland, 
1792.  Reprinted  in  Facsimile.  London,  Hodder  and  Stoughton, 
1891. 

2  Missions  to  the  Heathen  in  1890  and  1891 :  A  Statistical  Review, 
Copenhagen,  Fr.  Bertelsen,  1893. 


1890. 

1891. 

,412,938 

£2,749,340 

4,652 

5,094 

2,118 

2,445 

3,424 

3,730 

36,405 

40,438 

966,856 

1,168,560 

RESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA  199 

at  1,300,000,  wMch  gives  a  native  Christian  community 
of  5,200,000  gathered  out  of  all  non-Christian  lands.^ 

Dean  Vahl's  statistics  are  drawn  from  the  reports  of 
304  mission  societies  and  agencies  in  1891,  beginning  with 
Cromwell's  New  England  Company,  for  America,  in  1649. 
On  the  following  page  the  details  are  summarised  from 
seventeen  lands  of  Reformed  Christendom.  The  amount 
raised  in  1891  by  the  160  Mission  Churches  and  Societies 
of  the  British  Empire  was  £1,659,830,  and  by  the  57  of 
the  United  States  of  America  £786,992.  Together  the 
two  great  English-speaking  peoples  spent  £2,446,822  on 
the  evangelisation  of  the  non- Christian  world.  The 
balance,  or  £302,518,  was  contributed  by  Germany  and 
Switzerland,  Netherlands,  Denmark,  France,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Finland,  and  in  Asia. 

The  figures  which  start  out  of  the  tables  of  the  world's 
population  and  area  are  those  of  Asia,  contrasted  with 
each  of  the  other  five  divisions  of  the  globe.  The  great 
majority  of  unevangelised  human  beings,  for  each  of  w^hom 
Christ  died,  are  there.  At  least  eight  hundred  millions 
of  these  toil  on  its  nine  and  a  quarter  millions  of  fertile 
square  miles,  or  roam  over  its  four  and  a  quarter  millions 
of  miles  of  steppe.  In  Asia  what  is  the  relative  posi- 
tion and  what  the  consequent  claims  of  India  and  its 
peoples  ? 

The  last  decennial  census  of  British  India,  taken  in 
February  1891,  revealed  the  following  as  the  divisions  of 
the  287^  millions  of  our  fellow-subjects  there  according 
to  religious  belief  or  custom.^  To  the  Christians  in 
British  India  must  be  added   those   in  the   small  French 

1  In  the  case  of  the  ordinary  civil  population  the  number  of  adult 
men  is  multiplied  by  five  for  the  total.  Communicants  being  of  both 
sexes  the  number  is,  for  missionary  purposes,  multiplied  by  four. 
The  Church  Missionary  Intelligencer  for  September  1893  would 
multiply  by  3^. 

2  Sir  W.  W.  Hunter's  chapter  ix.  of  his  great  work  on  Tlie  Indian 
Umpire,  its  Peoples,  History,  and  Products,  3rd  edition,  1893,  should 
be  consulted  for  fuller  details  and  percentages,  as  well  as  on  aU  Indian 
facts. 


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IIESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA 


201 


and  Portuguese  India,  making  the  total   2,601,355   thus 
divided : — 


Cheistians  in  All  India,  1891. 

Native  Reformed 

•        •         • 

•        • 

648,843 

Syrian  Jacobite  (say) 

. 

•        • 

300,000 

Syrian  and  Roman  Catholic 

•        • 

1,594,901 

European 

and  American  Evangelical 
In  all  India         .       , 

•        • 

57,611 

2,601,355 

Religions 

OF  British  India,  1891. 

British  Provinces. 

Native  States. 

Totals. 

Hindu 

155,171,943 

52,559,784 

207,731,727 

Hindu 

Musalman 

49,550,491 

7,770,673 

57,321,164 

Musalman 

Animistic 

5,848,427 

3,432,040 

9,280,467 

Animistic 

Buddhist 

7,095,398 

35,963 

7,131,361 

Buddhist 

Christian 

1,491,458 

792,714 

2,284,172 

Christian 

Sikh 

1,407,968 

499,865 

1,907,833 

Sikh 

Jain 

495,001 

921,637 

1,416,638 

Jain 

Zoroastrian 

76,952 

12,952 

89,904 

Zoroastrian 

Jew 

14,669 

2,525 

17,194 

Jew 

Minor  and 

Minor  and 

Unspecified       20,645 

22,326 

42,971 

Unspecified 

Grand  Total 

221,172,952 

66,050,479 

287,223,431 

These  figures  show  that  Christians  have  increased  by 
316,033  in  the  Provinces,  and  105,713  in  the  States,  total 
421,746,  since  the  census  of  1881,  and  that  their  advance 
has  been  22*65  per  cent,  compared  with  a  growth  of  only 
13*1  per  cent  in  the  entire  population.^  Even  after 
allowing  for  a  somewhat  stricter  registration  in  1891  the 
result  remains  very  remarkable.  The  Christians  of  India 
outnumber  the  Sikh  nation.  The  Christians  are  found  in 
the  several  Provinces  and  States  in  these  proportions : — 

^  We  follow  the  analysis  published  by  Sir  Theodore  C.  Hope, 
K.C.S.I.,  CLE.,  formerly  member  of  the  Governor- General's  Council, 
in  his  Church  and  State  in  India.     London,  S.P.C.K.,  1893. 


202 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 


British  Provinces. 

Native  States. 

Total 
India. 

1 

Assam 

16,820 

1 
16,820 

Burma  and  Anda- 

mans 

121,223 

Shan  States 

154 

121,377 

Bengal 

190,816 

Bengal  States     . 

1,655 

192,471 

North -West  Pro- 

Korth-West Pro- 

vinces 

58,424 

vinces  States  . 

77 

58,501 

Punjab  and  Quetta 

56,582 

Punjab  States  and 

Kashmer 

539 

57,121 

Ajmer-Merwara    . 

2,683 

Rajpootana 

1,855 

4,538 

Bombay,    Sindh, 

Bombay    States 

and  Aden 

161,766 

and  Baroda     . 

8,885 

170,651 

Central  Provinces 

12,970 

Central  India  and 

C.P.  States      . 

6,335 

19,305 

Berar  . 

1,359 

Haidarabad 

20,429 

21,788 

Madras  and  Coorg 

868,815 

Madras  States     . 

714,651 

1,583,466 

Mysore 

38,134 

38,134  1 

i 

Totals 

1,491,458 

792,714 

2,284,172 

About  two  millions  of  the  Christians  are  natives  of 
India,  and  only  a  quarter  of  a  million  are  Europeans  and 
Eurasians.  Of  the  native  Christians  nearly  two-thirds  live 
in  the  British  Provinces,  and  fully  one -third  in  the 
territories  of  native  princes.  The  whole  of  the  religious 
establishments  of  this  great  body  of  native  Christians, 
eight-ninths  of  all  Christians  in  India,  are  self-support- 
ing, and  unconnected  with  the  State — indeed,  practically 
ignored  by  it. 

In  1891  the  Europeans  numbered  168,000,  and 
the  mixed  class  of  Eurasians  about  half  of  these,  thus 
divided — 


EuropeanB. 

Enrasiai 

British  troops 

70,953 

... 

„      Officers  with  sepoys  . 

3,617 

... 

Civil  establishments 

10,524      . 

8,190 

Railway  establishments 

6,093      . 

9,093 

Non-officials         •        •        • 

76,813      . 

.       62,559 

168,000 


79,842 


RESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA  203 

For  the  troops  and  civil  service  Government  provides 
an  ecclesiastical  establishment  under  the  Charter  of  1813, 
considerably  increased  by  its  successors,  costing  £216,231  ^ 
a  year.  In  1891  there  were  241  chaplains  and  100  aided 
clergy  for  the  247,842  Christians  of  pure  and  mixed 
British  descent,  in  the  proportion  of  215  Anglicans,  22 
Presbyterians,  28  Wesleyans,  and  76  Eoman  Catholics. 
In  many  stations  the  missionaries  to  the  natives  supplement 
this  establishment  where  it  is  lacking  in  strength  or  evan- 
gelical purity.  What  a  powerful  influence  for  good  or 
evil  are  these  Christians  of  the  dispersion  in  India  !  What 
is  true  of  Christendom  is  still  more  certain  of  British 
and  American  Christians  in  India  and  non-Christian  lands 
— were  each  a  living  epistle  of  Christ  the  conversion  of 
India  and  of  the  World  would  be  at  hand. 

We  now  confine  our  attention  to  the  Eeformed  Native 
Churches.  Four  times  in  the  past  forty  years  the  Calcutta 
Missionary  Conference  has  compiled  and  published  statis- 
tical tables  of  Protestant  or  evangelical  missions  in  India, 
Burma,  and  Ceylon.  Dr.  Mullens — who  afterwards,  when 
secretary  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  became  one 
of  the  earlier  martyrs  to  the  coast  climate  of  East  Africa — 
began  the  work  in  1851,  and  repeated  it  in  1861.  The 
rate  of  increase  in  the  number  of  native  Christians  in  that 
decade  was  53  per  cent.  In  the  next  decade  it  rose  to  61 
per  cent,  and  in  that  from  1871  to  1881  it  was  86  per 
cent.  From  1881  to  1890,  it  was  53 J  per  cent  for  nine 
years.  The  compilers  of  the  tables  for  1881-1890^  deal 
with  a  period  of  nine  years  only,  in  order  to  bring  the 
results  into  line  with  the  more  general  returns  of  the 
Imperial  census,  for  purposes  of  comparison.  The  figures 
accordingly  show,  in  great  detail,  the  number  of  native 
Christians,  of  native  communicants,  of  native  Christian 
boys  and  girls  at  school  and  college  and  Sunday  school, 
of  women  under  instruction  in  zananas,  and  of  missionary 

*  Or  tens  of  rupees,  EX. 

2  Protestant  Missions  in  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon.     Statistical 
Tables,  1890.     Calcutta  Baptist  Mission  Press,  1892. 


204  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

churches,  societies,  and  agents  of  all  kinds  and  both  sexes, 
at  the  close  of  1890. 

Then  there  were  559,661  native  Protestant  Christians 
in  India,  and  89,182  in  Burma,  or  648,843  in  all.  The 
increase  is  thus  seen : 

India  proper  in  1851      ,     91,092        In  1890      .         .       559,661 
Burma  in  1861      .         .     59,369         In  1890      .         .         89,182 

In  forty  years  468,569  converts  in  India,  and  in  thirty 
years  29,873  converts  in  Burma,  that  is,  498,442  in  all,  or 
about  half  a  million,  have  been  added  to  the  Christian 
Church.  The  strictest  test,  however,  is  not  the  strength 
of  the  whole  community  bearing  the  Christian  name,  but 
the  number  and  rate  of  increase  of  communicants.  These 
stood  as  follows  : — 

India  proper  in  1851      .14,661        In  1890    .        .        182,722 
Burma In  1890    .        .  33,037 

In  1851,  all  of  Burma  that  Great  Britain  held  was  the 
two  coast  strips  of  Arakan  and  Tenasserim,  where^  Judson 
had  laboured  chiefly  for  the  future.  It  was  afterwards 
that  Lord  Dalhousie  conquered  fertile  Pegu,  and  only  the 
other  day  that  Lord  Dufierin  added  the  Upper  Kingdom. 
It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the  number  of  native 
Christian  communicants  connected  with  the  evangelical 
Churches  of  Great  Britain,  America,  and  Germany  has 
grown  in  forty  years  from  15,000  to  215,759  in  1890,  or 
at  the  present  time  to  above  a  quarter  of  a  million.  No 
statistics  can  show  the  growth  of  these  native  Christians 
in  wealth,  in  social  position,  and  in  official  and  professional 
influence.  They  are  pushing  out  the  Brahmans,  many  of 
them  being  simply  Christian  Brahmans,  by  character,  by 
ability,  and  by  intelligent  loyalty,  till  the  Hindu  press  con- 
fesses the  fact  with  apprehension,  and  the  local  Blue-books 
report  it  continually  to  Parliament.  The  Christians  have 
wives  educated  up  to  their  own  level,  while  polygamy  and 
the  hideous  sexual  customs,  which  legislation  can  hardly 
ameliorate  from  the  outside,  continue  to  depress  the  Hindu 
and  Musalman  communities. 


RESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  HUSSIONS  TO  INDIA 


205 


Perhaps  the  most  interesting  fact  in  these  Tables  is 
expressed  in  the  three  lines  which  state  that  of  19,298 
adult  baptisms  in  the  year  1890,  only  15  were  of  Bud- 
dhists, from  200  to  250  of  Mohammedans,  about  28,000 
of  demon-worshippers,  and  some  16,800  of  Hindus  of  all 
castes.  Even  in  tolerant  and  neutral  British  India  the 
Mohammedans  are  still  the  forlorn  hope  of  the  missionary 
campaign.  The  number  of  our  Buddhist  subjects  on  the 
Himalayan  slopes  and  in  Burma  is  comparatively  small, 
but  every  year  shows  an  advance  in  the  work  of  the 
Moravian,  the  Scottish,  and  the  American  ^missions  among 
them. 

The  medical  returns  show  97  foreign  or  European  and 
168  native  Christian  medical  missionaries,  with  166 
hospitals  and  dispensaries. 

In  the  nineteen  years  ending  1890  the  number  of 
women  workers,  foreign  and  Eurasian,  in  India  has  in- 
creased from  370  to  711,  and  of  native  Christians  from 
837  to  3278.  These  taught  7302  girls  and  1784  orphans 
in  166  boarding  schools,  62,414  girls  in  1507  day  schools, 
and  so  many  as  32,659  women  in  houses  or  zananas. 

Woman's  Woek  in  India,  1890. 


Female 
Agents. 

Boarding- 
schools, 

Day- 
Schools. 

Zananas. 

1g 

a? 

II 

ll 
SI 

1 

1 

•a 

1 

1 

GO 

W 

1 

Church  of  England     .    . 

Presbyterian 

Congregationalist    .    .     . 

Baptist 

Methodist 

Lutheran 

Zanana  B.  &  M.  Mission . 
Miscellaneous     .... 

223 
112 
SS 
lOS 
113 
2 
56 
59 

988 
515 
390 
310 
616 
136 
161 
lt^2 

60 
20 
18 
15 
32 
10 
2 
9 

2599 
788 
662 
705 

1738 

407 

47 

356 

432 
152 
103 
229 
555 
128 
1 
184 

411 
324 
188 
99 
364 
18 
54 
49 

15,129 
12,814 
9,554 
5,276 
11,687 
1,859 
2,191 
3,904 

11,109      4,361 

1,612  ,    2,959 

11,782      4,120 

3,244  '    2,465 

7,893    14,858 

293  ;         21 

8,995  !    8,063 

585         812 

711 

3278 

166 

7302 

1784 

1507 

62,414 

40,513    32,669 

206 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 


This  is  exclusive  of  the  medical  work  of  fully-qualified 
women.  That  and  the  educational  work  of  both  men  and 
women  must  tell  powerfully  on  every  new  generation  when 
we  find  these  grand  totals  : — 


Year. 


Under  Missionary  Instruction- 
Males  and  Females. 


1851  . 

64,043 

1861  . 

75,995 

1871  . 

122,372 

1881  . 

.     196,360 

1890  . 

299,051 

Besides  these,  135,565  attended  Sunday  schools  in 
1890,  and  8698  in  Burma,  against  61,668  in  the  year 
1881. 

The  staff  of  missionaries  (male)  has  stood  as  follows  in 
successive  periods : — 


Year. 

Foreign 

Native 

Foreign 

Native 

Ordained. 

Ordained. 

Lay. 

Lay. 

1851 

339 

21 

493 

1861 

479 

97 

1266 

1871 

488 

225 

1985 

1881 

586 

461 

72 

2488 

1890 

868 

797 

118 

3491 

The  hopeful  feature  of  that  table  is  the  increase  of  native 
ordained  missionaries  from  21  to  797  in  forty  years. 
Adding  together  the  numbers  of  workers  of  every  kind, 
male  and  female,  there  were  9263,  of  whom  3491  were 
native  men  and  3278  native  women,  while  986  were 
foreign  men  and  711  were  foreign  women,  exclusive, 
generally,  of  missionaries'  wives.  Since  1890  the  increase 
of  woman  and  medical  missionaries  has  been  still  more 
marked,  while  the  healthy  tendency  of  all  the  Societies, 
especially  the  American,  is  to  solve  the  question  of  "  cheap 


RESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA  207 

missions"  by  largely  increasing  the  number"  of  native 
catechists  placed  under  each  white  overseer. 

The  results  of  the  missionary  census  of  Ceylon  show 
that  it  has  not  yet  recovered  from  the  intolerance  of  the 
Portuguese  and  the  policy  of  the  Dutch.^  The  rate  of 
increase  up  to  1881  seems  to  have  been  arrested  by  a 
Buddhist  revival,  prompted  to  some  extent  from  America 
and  Europe.  In  that  year  the  native  Christian  community 
numbered  35,708,  cared  for  by  the  Church  of  England, 
the  Wesleyan  and  the  Baptist  Societies,  and  the  American 
Board.  In  1890  the  returns  do  not  show  more  than 
25,000,  or  fewer  than  in  1871,  of  whom  9000  were  com- 
municants. There  were  40,000  boys  and  girls  in  the 
mission  schools. 

Evangelical  Christendom  sent  to  Christianise  the  Indian 
Empire  868  ordained  and  118  non-ordained  men  (not 
reckoning  their  wives),  and  711  unmarried  women,  or 
1697  missionaries,  at  the  end  of  the  year  1890.  Allowing 
for  the  normal  rate  of  increase  during  the  subsequent 
three  years,  there  are  now  1800  foreign  missionaries  to 
300,000,000  of  British  subjects,  or  one  missionary — man 
or  woman — to  about  every  167,000  of  the  population. 
The  number  of  ordained  men  is  smaller  than  that  of  the 
specially-trained  covenanted  civil  servants  who  rule  and 
administer  the  country.  The  number  of  men  and  women 
together  is  less  than  half  of  the  British  officers  who  com- 
mand the  native  troops ;  is  only  a  fourth  of  the  British 

1  See  Miss  C.  F.  Gordon-Cumining's  Tivo  Happy  Years  in  Ceylon 
(3rd  ed.,  1892).  So  soon  as  the  priests  of  Buddha  in  Ceylon  realised 
that  the  scholarly  missionaries,  Gogerly  and  Spence  Hardy,  ''were  no 
longer  satisfied  with  a  merely  nominal  profession  of  the  foreign  creed 
in  order  to  ohtain  Government  employment,  but  insisted  on  a  radical 
conversion,  they  roused  themselves  to  resist  their  progress  by  violently 
antagonistic  preaching  from  village  to  village."  This  was  legitimate 
enough,  and  a  testimony  to  the  truth  of  Christ.  But  Miss  Gordon- 
Cumming  shows  the  impetus  given  to  Buddhism  by  the  so-called  Theo- 
sophists  under  Colonel  Olcott,  the  American,  and  Sir  Edwin  Arnold, 
and  she  convicts  the  Government  of  encouraging  Buddhism  on  a 
system  like  that  which  resulted  in  the  India  Mutiny  of  1857,  and 
the  extinction  of  the  East  India  Company. 


208  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

military  garrison  which  keeps  the  peace  of  Southern  Asia. 
Each  Church  of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  United 
States  may  contrast  the  nine  hundred  male  missionaries 
sent  to  the  three  hundred  millions  specially  entrusted  to 
our  care,  with  the  number  of  its  own  congregational  and 
professorial  clergy.  Nor  is  the  smallness  of  the  number 
sent  to  India  the  only  reproach.  Were  each  of  the  eighteen 
hundred  entrusted  with  funds  for  the  training  of  many 
more  native  catechists,  teachers,  and  village  preachers,  with 
medical  subordinates  for  dispensaries  and  the  zananas,  the 
problem  of  a  cheap  organisation  of  missions  would  be 
solved.  Each  of  India's  seventy-five  cities  with  a  population 
above  fifty  thousand,  of  its  2035  municipal  towns  with 
a  population  above  five  thousand,  and  of  its  715,500 
villages,  would  be  brought  within  the  direct  influence  of 
the  Christian  Church  in  as  many  decades  as  at  present 
seems  likely  to  occupy  centuries. 

The  British  Indian  empire  occupies  only  one-fifteenth 
of  the  area  of  the  habitable  globe,  yet  it  contains  one-fifth 
of  the  human  race.  One-tenth  of  these  live  in  cities,  nine- 
tenths  in  villages.  Mr.  J.  A.  Baines,  the  commissioner, 
who  took  the  census  of  India — the  greatest  scientific 
enumeration  of  human  beings  ever  made. — gives  us  the 
remarkable  table  on  page  209  as  its  accurate  result.^  ■ 

The  inquirer,  who  would  learn  how  little  evangelical 
Christians  are  doing  for  the  conversion  of  the  peoples  of 
India,  should  contrast  with  that  table  the  decennial  statis- 
tics of  Protestant  missions  at  the  same  time  which  we 
have  summarised.  Province  by  Province  and  State  by 
State.  After  Dr.  Mullens  published  the  statistics  of  1851 
this  was  done  by  Mr.  Macleod  Wylie,  the  Calcutta  judge, 
in  The  Urgent  Claims  of  India  foi'  More  Christian  Missions.^ 
Then  the  number  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  India  was 
403,  and  that  was  threefold  more  than  in  1831,  near  the 
close  of  Carey's  apostolate  of  forty-one  years.     He  Avho 

1  See  his  Paper  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society  for 
March  1893,  pp.  1-43. 

2  Published  under  the  name  of  "  A  Layman  in  India,"  by  W.  H. 
Dalton,  London,  in  1853.     Second  edition. 


RESULTS  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA 


209 


India  :  its  Area  and  Population  in  Towns  and  Villages, 

1891. 


1 

2 

8 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

Province,  State,  or 

Area 
in 

Population 
in 

Persons  per 

Percentage  of 

a 

Net  Increase  of 

Agency. 

Square 
Miles. 

February 
1891. 

1^ 

1 

S.2 

Population  since 
1881.t 

Total. 

Urban. 

Madras  . 

141,189 

35,630,440 

252 

578 

9-56 

15-58 

10-75 

Bombay 

77,275 

15,985,270 

207 

635 

19-49 

13-71 

j-  10-29 

Sindh     . 

47,789 

2,871,774 

60 

686 

11-92 

18-97 

Bengal  . 

.       151,543 

71,346,987 

471 

301 

4-82 

6-89 

7-37 

North-West  Provinces 

83,286 

34,254.254 

411 

384 

12-70 

4-55 

2-24 

Oudh      . 

24,217 

12,650,831 

522 

494 

7-60 

11-09 

5-82 

Punjab  . 

110,667 

20,866,847 

188 

548 

11-56 

10-74 

7-93 

Upper  Burma 

88,473 

2,946,933 

35 

246 

12-60 

Lower      ,, 

87,957 

4,658,627 

53 

236 

12-35 

24-67 

7-86 

Central  Provinces 

86,501 

10,784,294 

125 

299 

6-85 

9-61 

7-11 

Assam     and      North 
Lushai  Land    . 

}       49,004 

6,476,8&'3 

112 

318 

1-86 

11-30 

10-37 

Berar     . 

17,718 

2,897,491 

163 

464 

12-45 

8-41 

8-49 

Coorg     . 

1,583 

173,055 

109 

348 

8-96 

-2-94 

-7-36 

Ajnier-Merwara    . 

2,711 

542,358 

I'OO 

581 

21-87 

17-72 

22-44 

Quetta,     Aden,     and 
Andamans 

Total  British  Province 

Haidarabad  . 

}         so 

86,958 

•• 

s      964,993 

221,172,952 

229 

383 

9-22 

9-70 

8-50 

82,698 

11,537,040 

139 

539 

9-45 

17-18 

11-09 

Baroda  . 

8,226 

2,415,:;96 

294 

693 

20-02 

10-54 

7-02 

Mysore  . 

27,936 

4,943,604 

177 

274 

12-67 

18-09 

13-55 

Kashnier 

80,900 

2,543,952 

31 

2S7 

7-77 

Rajpootana  . 

.       130,268 

12,016,102 

92 

363 

12-73 

20-22 

12-22 

Central  India 

77,808 

10,318,812 

133 

297 

9-34 

9-92 

7-27 

Bombay  States      . 

69,045 

8,059,298 

117 

475 

14-61 

16-35 

12-67 

Madras        „ 

9,609 

3,700,622 

385 

1703 

4-73 

10  63 

0-85 

Central  Province  Statej 

29,435 

2,160,r,li 

73 

207 

1-79 

26-36 

12-09 

Bengal  States 

35,834 

3,296,379 

93 

174 

0-50 

18-30 

8-85 

North -West   Province 
States 

|-         5,109 

792,491 

155 

309 

13-02 

6-84 

2-01 

Punjab  States 

38,299 

4,263,280 

111 

212 

10-71 

10-42 

6-77 

Fort  Steadman  (Shan) 
Outposts) 

Total  Fendatorj'  States 

Total  India  . 

}     ■• 

2,992 

•• 

•• 

•• 

595,167 

66,050,479 

111 

33S 

10-38 

15-52 

12-32 

1,560,160 

287,223,431 

184 

372 

9-48 

10-96 

9-40 

*  Places  of  under  10,000  inhabitants,  including  the  smaller  towns. 
t  Excluding  tracts  and  towns  not  enumerated  in  1S81  as  well  as  in  1891. 


210  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

would  learn  how  much  the  Christian  Church  has  done  in 
India  in  the  forty  years  since  Wylie  wrote,  will  give  God 
thanks  that  the  native  evangelical  community  has  increased  , 
sevenfold,  and  that  one  in  three  is  now  a  member  of  the 
Church  against  one  in  six  in  1851.  If  such  a  rate  of 
progress  were  continued,  the  most  cautious  of  experienced 
missionaries  and  divines.  Dr.  John  Robson  of  Rajpootana 
and  Aberdeen,  remarks,^  "The  Protestant  Church  would 
absorb  the  whole  population  of  India  about  the  middle  of 
the  twenty-first  century." 

But  the  comjjarative  success  of  these  fifty  years  only 
increases  the  responsibility  and  the  reproach  of  the 
majority  of  the  hereditary  Christians  of  Great  Britain  and 
America — two-thirds — who  are  still  doing  nothing  to  bring 
India  and  the  non-Christian  world  to  Christ.  At  last  each 
of  the  great  Native  States,  even  the  fanatical  capital  of 
Haidarabad,  Deccan,  has  been  occupied  by  a  missionary  or 
two,  with  results  which,  from  Travankor  to  the  most  ancient 
and  caste-bound  principalities  of  Rajpootana,  encourage 
manifold  effort.  But  there  are  many  of  the  smaller  States 
into  which  no  preacher,  teacher,  or  healer  has  yet  entered, 
although  in  some  cases  the  chief  is  known  to  be  a  student 
of  Scripture,  while  in  others  he  becomes  a  convert  to 
Islam.  There  are  many  British  and  American  Christians 
able  enough,  if  they  were  in  earnest,  to  take  each  one  of 
these  Native  States — Mohammedan,  Hindu,  or  Buddhist — 
and  provide  for  its  evangelisation  within  their  own  life- 
time or  that  of  their  children.  Nepal  alone,  attempted 
by  the  Jesuits  nearly  three  centuries  ago,  is  shut  to  the 
gospel,  as  Kashmer  was  till  Elmslie,  the  Scots  medical 
missionary,  forced  a  free  entrance  for  all.  From  Sikkim 
and  Leh,^  though  not  yet  from  the  borders  of  Assam 
and  the  North -Western  Provinces,  attempts  have  long 
been  made  upon  the  sealed  region  of  Thibet,  now  open- 
ing up. 

It  is  in  directly  British  Provinces,  however,  like  Bengal 
and   that  of   the  Ganges   and   Jumna  valleys,  that  the 
1  Hinduism  and  its  Relations  to  Christianity.    New  edition.    Edin- 
burgh (Oliphant),  1893. 


APPEAL  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA  211 

Christians  of  America  and  Britain  liave  most  lamentably 
failed  in  their  duty.  The  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal, 
Sir  Charles  Elliot,  publicly  rejoiced  that  the  number  of 
Christians  in  his  jurisdiction  had  advanced  from  122,000 
to  180,000  in  ten  years.  But  Bengal  has  a  non-Christian 
population  greater  than  those  of  the  United  Kingdom  and 
France  combined,  greater  than  that  of  the  whole  United 
States  of  America  at  this  hour.  It  is,  in  plain  language, 
the  scandal  of  British  Christians,  at  least,  that  the  rich, 
fertile,  and  healthy  division  of  the  Province,  Bahar,  whence 
Buddhism  overran  the  East  from  Ceylon  north  to  Mongolia, 
and  where  the  Hindus  kept  the  Mohammedan  invaders  in 
check,  has  only  thirty  missionaries,  of  whom  one-half  are 
women,  for  twenty-five  millions  of  souls,  including  two 
hundred  thousand  in  its  fanatical  capital,  Patna.  Macleod 
Wy lie's  urgency  is  still  justified  after  fifty  years,  for  we 
have  more  knowledge,  more  resources,  more  liberty,  and  a 
far  larger  population  to  whom  the  gospel  must  be  preached 
for  a  witness,  and  for  their  turning  from  darkness  to 
light  :— 

"The  duty  of  the  Church  of  Christ  indeed  is  so  plain,  that  he  who 
runs  may  read  it.  Who  hath  hindered  that  we  should  not  obey? 
Have  we  love  for  Christ?  that  will  constrain  us.  Do  we  honour  Christ? 
His  last  commands  will  bind  us.  Do  we  desire  to  promote  his  gloiy  ? 
That  will  impel  us.  Do  we  mourn  over  all  who  know  Him  not? 
Then  pity  for  them  will  compel  us, — yes,  all  heavenly  affections,  aU 
scriptural  convictions,  all  obligations  of  duty,  will  force  us  to  shake 
off  the  lethargy  and  selfishness  of  bygone  years,  to  awaken  all  our 
powers  in  proclaiming  '  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God, '  and  to 
do  this  now,  for  'now  is  the  accepted  time,  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion.* Much  more  would  I  say  for  India,  but  words  fail  to  express  her 
woe,  or  to  expose  the  Christian's  shame  for  past  neglect  of  her.  I  feel 
that  it  is  wise  to  cease  from  man  and  to  look  to  Jesus.  With  His 
infinite  power,  He  can  sway  the  hearts  of  those  with  whom  all 
entreaties  fail.  He  can  raise  up  men  of  faith  and  holiness,  constraining 
them  to  labour  for  Him,  and  at  last  He  will  give  victory  to  truth. 
The  cause  of  missions  is  His  own  peculiar  cause,  for  He  is  the  friend  of 
sinners.  He  came  not  only  to  call  them  to  repentance,  but  also  to 
give  His  life  for  them,  and  He  now  pleads  for  them  in  glory.  Oh  that 
he  would  speedily  look  down  upon  India,  send  showers  of  blessings, 


212  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

give  us  thousands  of  labourers  in  this  plenteous  harvest,  and  cause  His 
Gospel  to  triumph  in  every  place  !  To  Him  be  the  praise  and  dominion 
for  ever." 


On  the  5th  day  of  January  1893  the  Eeformed  mis- 
sionaries in  India,  assembled  at  Bombay  in  the  third  great 
Decennial  Conference,  sent  this  message  to  the  Churches 
of  Christendom : — 

"  Overwhelmed  by  the  vastness  of  the  work  contrasted 
with  the  utterly  inadequate  supply  of  workers,  earnestly 
appeal  to  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Europe,  America,  Austral- 
asia, and  Asia,  we  re-echo  to  you  the  cry  of  the  unsatis- 
fied heart  of  India.  With  it  we  pass  on  the  Master's 
word  for  the  perishing  multitude.  Give  ye  them  to  eat.  An 
opportunity  and  a  responsibility  never  known  before  con- 
front us. 

"  The  work  among  the  educated  and  English-sjpeaking  classes 
has  reached  a  crisis.  The  faithful  labours  of  godly  men 
in  the  class-room  need  to  be  followed  up  by  men  of  con- 
secrated culture,  free  to  devote  their  whole  time  to  aggres- 
sive work  among  India's  thinking  men.  Who  will  come 
and  help  to  bring  young  India  to  the  feet  of  Christ? 
Medical  missionaries  of  both  sexes  are  urgently  required. 
We  hold  up  before  medical  students  and  young  doctors 
the  splendid  opportunity  here  ofiered  of  reaching  the  souls 
of  men  through  their  bodies.  The  women  of  India  must 
be  evangelised  by  women.  Ten  times  the  present  number 
of  such  workers  could  not  overtake  the  task.  Missionary- 
ladies  now  working  are  so  taxed  by  the  care  of  converts 
and  inquirers  already  gained,  that  often  no  strength  is 
left  for  entering  thousands  of  unentered  but  open  doors. 
Can  our  sisters  in  Protestant  Christendom  permit  this  to 
continue  1  India  has  fifty-seven  millions  of  Mohammedans 
— a  larger  number  than  are  found  in  the  Turkish  Empire, 
and  far  more  free  to  embrace  Christianity.  .Who  will 
come  to  work  for  them  ? 

"  Scores  of  missionaries  should  be  set  apart  to  promote 
the  production  of  Christian  literature  in  the  languages  of 


APPEAL  FOR  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  TO  INDIA  213 

the  people.  Sunday  Schools,  into  wliicli  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  India's  children  can  readily  be  brought  and  moulded 
for  Christ,  furnish  one  of  India's  greatest  opportunities  for 
yet  more  workers.  Industrial  Schools  are  urgently  needed 
to  help  in  developing  a  robust  character  in  Christian 
youths,  and  to  open  new  avenues  for  honest  work  for 
them.  These  call  for  capable  Christian  workers  of  special 
qualifications. 

"  The  population  of  India'  is  largely  rural.  In  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  villages  there  is  a  distinct  mass-move- 
ment toward  Christianity.  There  are  millions  who  would 
speedily  become  Christians  if  messengers  of  Christ  could 
reach  them,  take  them  by  the  hand,  and  not  only  baptize 
but  lead  them  into  all  Christian  living.  Most  of  these 
people  belong  to  the  dejjressed  classes.  They  are  none  the 
less  heirs  to  our  common  salvation,  and,  whatever  ad- 
mixture of  less  spiritual  motives  may  exist,  God  Himself 
is  stirring  their  hearts  and  turning  their  thoughts  toward 
the  things  which  belong  to  His  kingdom. 

"In  the  name  of  Christ,  and  of  these  unevangelised 
masses  for  whom  He  died,  we  appeal  to  you  to  send  more 
labourers  at  once.  May  every  Church  hear  the  voice  of 
the  Spirit  saying,  'Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for 
the  work  whereunto  I  have ,  called  them ' !  In  every 
Church  may  there  be  a  Barnabas  and  Saul  ready  to  obey 
the  Spirit's  promptings  ! 

"Face  to  face  with  two  hundred  and  eighty -seven 
millions  in  this  land,  for  whom  in  this  generation  you  as 
well  as  we  are  responsible,  we  ask.  Will  you  not  speedily 
double  the  present  number  of  labourers  ?  Will  you  not 
also  lend  your  choicest  pastors  to  labour  for  a  term  of 
years  among  the  millions  who  can  be  reached  through  the 
English  tongue  1  Is  this  too  great  a  demand  to  make 
upon  the  resources  of  those  saved  by  omnipotent  Love  ? 
At  the  beginning  of  another  century  of  missions  in  India 
let  us  all  '  expect  great  things  from  God — attempt  great 
things  for  God.' 

"  For  the  reflex  blessings  to  yourselves,  as  well  as  for 
India's  sake,  we  beseech  you  to  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith 


214  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

unto  the  Churches.  The  manifestation  of  Christ  is  greatest 
to  those  who  keep  His  commandments,  and  this  is  His 
commandment — 


Go  YE  INTO  ALL  THE  WORLD,  AND  PREACH  THE  GOSPEL 
TO  EVERY  CREATURE." 


THE  PROSPECTS   OF    THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 

"Re  said  unto  them,  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  heaven. 
Behold,  I  give  unto  you  power  .  ,  ,  over  all  the  power  of  the  enemy." 
—St.  Luke  x.  18,  19. 

The  prospects  of  the  conversion  of  India,  in  the  same 
sense,  historically,  as  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  that 
of  the  Northern  Nations,  depend  on  the  faith  and  labour 
of  the  Church  entering  in  at  every  door  opened  by  British 
power  and  administration.  Never  in  all  its  history  has 
Christianity  had  such  facilities.  The  danger  is  that,  in  its 
representatives,  the  Church  trusts  too  much  to  its  pro- 
vidential environment,  uses  too  little  its  supernatural 
weapons.  There  is  an  intolerance  that  is  demanded  by 
Christ  of  His  followers,  and  is  understood  and  admired  by 
the  Asiatic  of  other  faiths.  By  such.  Gibbon  rightly 
judges,  the  missionaries  of  Christ  in  the  first  two  centuries 
conquered  the  Roman  Empire.  The  want  of  it  neutralised 
all  the  toil  and  the  heroism  of  the  Nestorian  and  the 
Roman  monks  in  Asia.  Brahmanism  has  defeated 
Buddhism  and  checked  Mohammedanism  in  India,  and  it 
is  quite  ready  to  extend  to  orthodox  Christianity  a  com- 
promise like  that  which  it  learned  from  the  Syrians  and 
the  Jesuits  when  it  developed  the  Vishnu  worship  of 
Krishna.^     Sir  M.  Monier- Williams,  after  personal  study 

^  See  Dr.  John  Muir's  introduction  to  his  Religious  and  Moral 
Sentiments  from  Sanskrit   Writers  (Williams  &  Norgate),  1875,  and 


216  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

on  the  spot,  in  his  Modern  India  and  tJie  Indians  (1878), 
while  too  inclined  to  advocate  compromise,  shows  that 
"  the  chief  impediment  to  Christianity  among  Indians  is 
not  only  the  pride  they  feel  in  their  own  religion,  but  the 
very  nature  of  that  religion.  For  pantheism  is  a  most 
subtle,  plausible,  and  all-embracing  system,  which  may 
profess  to  include  Christianity  itself  as  one  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe.  An  eminent  Hindu  is 
reported  to  have  said,  '  We  Hindus  have  no  need  of  con- 
version; we  are  Christians,  and  more  than  Christians, 
already.' " 

The  temptations  to  unconscious  compromise  on  the  side  of 
the  Eeformed  are  not  absent.  In  India  itself  the  missionaries 
have  sometimes  recognised  caste,  and  have  been  too  con- 
tent with  a  low  level  of  faith,  zeal,  and  self-sacrifice  on  the 
part  of  the  converts.  In  Britain,  America,  and  Germany, 
the  cry  for  results  that  can  be  tabulated  and  for  success  that 
is  evident,  the  preference  of  methods  which  produce  im- 
mediate fruit  in  individuals  to  those  which  work  for  the 
destruction  of  Brahmanism  itself  and  the  creation  of 
Christian  nations,  are  of  this  subtle  nature.  Both  are 
required,  each  for  a  different  class,  yet  some  of  the  sup- 
porters of  missions  attack  the  latter  as  no  experienced 
missionary  ever  does.  The  wisest  preacher  of  our  age,^ 
expounding  the  confession  of  apparent  failure  by  the  man 
who  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Church  of  all  the  nations, 
Paul,  in  his  greatest  letter  from  Eome  to  the  Philippians, 
(ii.  20,  21),  warns  the  most  zealous  that  the  followers  of 
the  Cross  have  no  right,  in  their  omn  day,  to  look  for  the 
recognition  of  success.  Only  in  heaven  shall  we  know 
which  are  the  lost  causes  and  which  the  victorious.^ 

The  prospects  of  the  conversion  of  India  are  brighter 

Mr.  C.  H.  Tawney  on  "The  Bhagavad-Gita  and  Christianity"  in  the 
Calcutta  Review  for  January  1876,  vol.  Ixii. 

1  See  the  late  Dean  Church's  Sermons,  xvii. 

2  For  a  curious  estimate,  markt^d  by  a  mixture  of  rashness  and 
wisdom,  read  Christian  Missions  to  Wrong  Places,  among  Wrong  Races^ 
and  in  Wrong  Hands,  by  A.  C.  Geikie,  D.D.  (London,  1871),  in  the 
light  of  the  facts  of  1893. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      217 

than  the  faith  and  the  obedience  of  the  Church.  Men 
who  landed  in  India,  as  the  writer  did,  forty  years  ago, 
and  have  watched  the  divine  drama  unrol  its  scenes,  till 
the  present  hour;  men  like  the  great  pioneers  of  the 
century,  of  whom  Caldwell  was  the  last — may  record  this 
as  their  least  hopeful  testimony  :  "  To  be  almost  a  convert 
is  the  highest  point  many  well  -  disposed  Hindus  have 
reached  at  present.  They  are  timidly  waiting  for  a 
general  movement  which  they  will  be  able  to  join  with- 
out personal  risk ;  but  the  time  may  any  day  come  when 
masses  of  them  will  become  not  only  almost,  but  altogether 
followers  of  Christ."^  Yet,  looking  up  and  abroad  from  the 
circumstances  of  the  hour  to  the  wide  contrasts  of  a  period 
of  forty  years,  we  have  authoritatively  stated  results  which 
make  this  seem  rather  the  testimony  of  pessimism. 
We  who  began  our  Indian  career  in  1853,  who  witnessed 
the  Mutiny  of  1857,  took  part  in  the  reorganisation  of  the 
administration  in  1858-1861,  and  rejoiced  in  the  increase  at 
that  time  of  missionary  efforts,  would  have  pronounced  it 
incredible  that,  ten  years  before  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  there  would  be  more  Christians  than  Sikhs  in 
India,  and  that  the  rate  of  increase  of  native  Christians  in 
the  martial  races  of  the  Punjab,  Mohammedan  and  Hindu, 
would  be  three  hundred  per  cent  every  decade. 

1881.  1891.  Increase. 


Sialkot  District 

253 

9711 

9458 

Gujranwala  „ 

81 

2246 

2156 

Gurdaspur    „ 

157 

2069 

1912 

Amritsar       „ 

241 

959 

718 

Lahore          ,, 

760 

1397 

637 

Ambala         „ 

224 

453 

229 

Lodiana        „ 

179 

305 

126 

Rawalpindi  „ 

110 

214 

104 

Jalaudhar     „ 

66 

136 

70 

Gurgaon        „ 

26 

86 

60 

Jhelum         „ 

48 

106 

58 

Simla            „ 

210 

262 

52 

^  Bishop  Caldwell  On  Reserve  in  communicating  Religious   Instruc- 
tion to  nan- Christians  in  Mission  Schools  in  India.     Madras,  1879. 


218 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 


We  can  better  record  some  signs  of  the  present  transi- 
tions of  the  peoples  of  India  from  the  power  of  darkness 
into  the  kingdom  of  the  Son  of  God's  love,  through 
repentance  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

The  aboriginal  or  prse-Aryan  peoples  of  India,  entered 
in  the  census  of  1891  as  "Animistic,"  and  numbering  nine 
and  a  quarter  millions,  were  returned  by  a  more  correct 
classification  twenty  years  before  as  seventeen  and  a  half 
millions,  exclusive  of  those  in  Madras  and  the  Feudatory 
States.  Allowing  for  these,  and  adding  the  casteless 
tribes  and  those  semi-Hinduised,  one-fifth  of  the  whole 
population,  or  fifty  millions,  from  the  Chooras  of  North 
Punjab  to  the  Pariahs  of  South  India,  are  in  the  same 
position  for  rapidly  receiving  Christianity  as  the  Kafirs 
and  Negroes  of  Africa  and  the  islands.  It  is  among  these 
chiefly  that  Christianity  has,  all  along,  won  its  numerical 
successes.  Till  Carey  and  Duff"  began  the  slow  sapping 
and  mining  processes  among  the  now  two  hundred 
millions  of  the  Brahmanical  and  Musalman  cults,  these 
only  were  evangelised.  In  the  last  forty  years  they  have 
been  instructed,  organised,  and  consolidated  with  a  care 
unknown  in  the  parishes  of  Christendom.  The  result  is 
seen  in  South  India,  in  the  Telugu  country,  in  Chota 
Nagpore,  in  Santalia,  and  in  the  more  recent  labours  of  the 
Established  Church  of  Scotland  and  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  in  the  Punjab  districts  of  Sialkot  and  Goojrat. 
This  is  a  marvellous  table  of  the  results  of  evangelical 
Christianity  in  forty  years,  not  to  be  equalled  by  any 
period  of  Church  history  : — 

Forty  Years'  Progress  of  Evangelical  Christianity 
IN  South  India. 


Foreign  Ordained  Agents         •        . 
Native                   do.        .        ,       , 
Foreign  and  Eurasian  Lay 

Preachers       .        .        .        »        » 
Native  Lay  Preachers      •       •        . 
Native  Christians     .... 
Native  Communicants      ,       .       , 

1851. 

1861. 

1871. 

1881. 

1890. 

147 
21 

*493 
91,092 
14,661 

201 

97 

l',266 
138,731 
24,976 

196 
225 

1,985 

224,258 

52,816 

217 
461 

72 

2,488 

417,372 

113,325 

262 
767 

118 

3,491 

559,661 

182,722 

THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      219 

Historically,  in  every  province,  as  the  pioneering  stage 
of  sowing,  and  weeding,  and  watching  is  passed,  similar 
and  even  greater  results  proportionally  are  being  worked 
out  every  year.  Where  the  missionary  is  weak  in  his 
enthusiasm  and  toil,  or  where,  in  yielding  to  the  pressure 
of  his  Church,  he  snatches  at  wholesale  baptisms,  falling 
into  the  snare  of  the  Jesuits  without  their  sacramentarian 
excuse,  he  then  suffers  from  inability  to  instruct  the 
baptized,  and  schism  and  apostasy  are  the  consequence.^ 
But  all  over  India  the  aboriginal  and  the  casteless,  the 
down-trodden  and  the  famine-stricken,  the  serf  and  the 
poor,  are  pressing  into  the  Church  by  families  and 
villages,  till  the  Church  fails  to  do  its  duty  to  the 
inquirers  on  the  one  hand  and  to  the  new  disciples  on  the 
other.  If  the  methods  of  the  Eeformed  were  those  of  the 
sacramentarian,  or  if  the  Eeformed  Church  doubled  its 
missionary  staff  at  once,  the  next  decennial  report  would 
show  a  fourfold  increase. 

The  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  caste  Hindus  still 
present  to  Christendom  an  unbroken  front,  or  very  little 
broken,  apparently.  But  that  it  is  disintegrating  under 
the  combined  influence  of  Western  civilisation  and  Christian 
truth  its  own  leaders  allow,  and  their  methods  of  meeting 
the  assault  confess.  Eclectic,  elastic,  willing  to  absorb 
every  belief  and  cult  that  will  tolerate  its  social  system, 
Brahmanism  presents  a  greater  difficulty  than  classical 
Paganism,  if  only  because  of  caste.  But  the  caste 
principle  itself  is  so  weakened,  that  an  educated  Hindu 
may  now  be  anything,  do  anything,  believe  anything, 
and  go  anywhere,  if  only  he  remains  nominally  within  the 
fold.  Formerly  Brahmans  could  not  so  far  resist  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Spirit  of  God,  under  Christian  teaching,  as  to 
remain  in  Hinduism,  because  the  system  rejected  them 
with  indignation :  now  it  tempts  them  by  concessions. 
The  deistical  Brahma  Somaj,  which  has  passed  through 
many  stages  of  development  since  the  writer's   friend, 

^  See,  for  one  painful  warning,  the  report  of  the  jSTarowal  Mission, 
Punjab,  by  the  C.  M.  S.  able  missionary,  Rev.  Rowland  Bateman,  and 
the  Church  Missionary  Intelligencer  for  August  1893,  pp.  628-9. 


220  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  reached  his  nearest  point  to  Christ  in 
1868,  and  is  now  represented  by  the  thoughtful  Pertab 
Chunder  Mozoomdar,  consists  of  only  three  thousand  four 
hundred  members.  But  it  has  kept,  and  it  keeps  far 
more  back  from  the  profession  of  faith  in  Christ  than  it 
helps  out  of  idolatry.  The  later  Arya  Somaj,  which 
admits  all  castes  to  the  new  caste  created  by  its  Brahman 
founder,  Dayanand  Saraswati,  as  Sikhism  did,  takes  its 
forty  thousand  members  back  to  the  Yeds.  Dr.  John 
Eobson,  whose  book  is  the  wisest  brief  exposition  of 
Hinduism  and  its  delations  to  Christianity,^  on  going  back  to 
Eajpootana  after  an  absence  of  twenty  years,  pronounces 
the  Arya  Somaj  one  of  the  most  redoubtable  antagonists 
of  Christianity,  but  "  it  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  dis- 
integrations of  old  Hinduism,  and  may  thus  do  a  work  in 
clearing  the  way  for  Christianity." 

Under  the  pressure  and  example  of  vernacular-preaching 
missionaries  Hinduism  seems  to  have  entered  on  new 
methods  of  self-defence.  A  universal  Hindu  conference — 
Bharat  Dharma  Mahamandal — was  lately  held  at  Benares, 
including  many  Hindu  ladies  of  high  family.  A  select 
committee  of  pundits  brought  up  a  report  on  "the 
deterioration  of  the  Hindu  religion."  To  an  immense 
crowd  at  each  of  the  four  corners  of  a  great  pavilion  four 
pundits  read  a  copy  of  the  report,  after  which  a  salute  of  one 
hundred  sankha,  or  blasts  from  the  conch  shell,  was  given. 
These  were  the  practical  conclusions  of  the  report.: — 

"  First,  all  the  dharmasova  and  all  the  priests  of  the  Hindu  temples 
will  offer  prayers  at  a  fixed  time  to  the  Supreme  Power,  so  that  the 
souaton  dharma  be  saved  from  the  deplorable  state  to  which  it  has 
come  down,  the  day  for  general  prayer  being  fixed  on  the  9th  of  sukla 
nabami  of  Aswin  ;  second,  to  establish  provincial  dharma  mandal  all 
over  the  country,  such  as  are  established  in  Bengal  and  Lahore,  and  to 
establish  a  central  maha  mandal  ;  third,  to  send  a  upadeshakas  to  all 
parts  of  Hindustan,  who  should  preach  sonaton  dharma  ;  fourth,  to 
publish  Sanskrit  books  containing  all  rules  of  apadharmas,  and  to 
publish  a  series  of  moral  and  educational  Sanskrit  books ;  fifth,  to 
establish  schools  for  Sanskrit  education." 

1  Edinburgh,  1893. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSIOX  OF  INDIA      221 

That  is,  the  pundits  appoint  a  day  of  united  prayer, 
the  employment  of  evangelists,  the  circulation  of  their 
religious  tracts  and  scriptures,  and  the  establishment  of 
Hindu  mission  schools.  So  the  Brahmanical  revival  goes 
on  after  a  half-hearted  fashion,  for  while  caste  has  a  side 
hostile  to  all  reform  from  without,  it  disintegrates  from 
within,  and  prevents  the  formation  of  an  united  front 
against  the  enlightened  assailant. 

The  ablest  and  most  eloquent  of  all  the  Brahman  con- 
verts of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  is  a  distinguished 
Pleader,  Kali  Churn  Banerji,  LL.B.  His  own  opinion  and 
his  report  of  the  prevailing  Hindu  view  of  the  advance  of 
Christianity  were  recently  stated  in  an  address  to  the 
Calcutta  Missionary  Conference  on  the  "  Organised 
Opposition  to  Christianity  in  India  " : — 

"  The  opposers  of  Christianity  no  longer  attack  Christianity,  but 
set  themselves  to  show  that  Christians  are  not  worthy  the  confidence 
of  the  Hindu  people.  The  enemy  are  attempting  to  spread 
abroad  the  following  ideas — 1,  With  the  exception  of  zanana  workers, 
the  missionaries  are  exercising  no  influence  in  the  country,  and  not 
worth  noticing.  2,  Missionaries  are  not  the  opponents  of  the 
national  faith,  but  the  opponents  of  national  institutions,  enemies  to 
India  patriotism.  3,  The  general  influence  of  missions  upon  the  life 
and  customs  of  the  people  is  not  helpful,  but  injurious  to  the 
country.  Besides  this,  numbers  of  the  Hindus  systematically  attempt 
to  co-ordinate  Hinduism  with  Christianity,  and  do  all  they  can  to 
entice  missionaries  and  Christians  to  admit  by  word  or  deed  that 
Christianity  and  Hinduism  are  each  systems  of  religion  of  high 
authority  and  excellence.  This  is  done  by  copying  the  methods  of 
the  Christian  propaganda,  preaching,  publishing  tracts,  etc.  etc. 
These  forms  of  opposition  to  Christianity,  so  far  as  they  go,  are  very 
encouraging  to  Christians,  and  indicate  that  they  have  the  whole 
matter  in  their  own  hands.  And  if  the  non-Christians  have  nothing 
more  serious  to  present  in  opposition,  all  that  is  needed  is  for  the 
missionaries  to  be  true  to  their  colours  and  India  will  be  theirs." 

If  there  is  a  New  Hinduism  there  is  also  the  beginning 
of  a  New  Islam  under  the  influence  of  the  Christian  pro- 
paganda and  Western  rule.  In  British  India  alone 
Mohammedans,  now  fifty-eight  millions  in  number,  are  con- 


222  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

strained  to  learn  toleration.  Under  the  "neutral"  rule 
of  Great  Britain,  as  they  term  it,  the  later  generation  of 
Islam  are  becoming  rationalists,  like  the  Mutazala  sect  of 
freethinkers,  that  thus  they  may  justify  reforms  such  as 
will  bring  their  children  abreast  of  the  progress  which  is 
changing  all  around  them.  They  hold  that  the  Shariat 
Law  of  Islam  is  common  law  which  must  advance  with 
new  conditions.  They  teach  that  the  Koran  has  only  a 
temporary  authority  on  moral  questions.  On  the  one 
hand  the  more  thoughtful  of  the  old  school  are  repre- 
sented by  Nawab  Mushin-ul-Mulk,  of  Haidarabad,  who 
exclaims,  "  To  me  it  seems  that  as  a  nation  and  a  religion 
we  are  dying  out.  .  .  .  Unless  a  miracle  of  reform  occurs 
we  Mohammedans  are  doomed  to  extinction,  and  we  shall 
have  deserved  our  fate.  For  God's  sake  let  the  reform 
take  place  before  it  is  too  late."  ^  On  the  other,  Sj^ed 
Amir  Ali  Sahib,  a  judge  of  the  High  Court  in  Calcutta, 
who  represents  the  young  men  influenced  by  English 
culture  but  hostile  to  Christian  influence,  wrote  his  book 
The  Spirit  of  Islam  to  assist  "the  Moslems  of  India  to 
achieve  intellectual  and  moral  regeneration  under  the 
auspices  of  the  great  European  Power  that  now  holds 
their  destinies  in  its  hands."  That  apologist  for  the 
Mohammedanism  of  the  Koran,  who  tries  to  explain 
away  its  sanctions  of  polygamy  and  concubinage,  the  "  dis- 
gusting ordeal"  of  the  temporary  husband  (Sura  II.  230), 
and  slavery,  and  only  substitutes  an  imaginary  Islam  of  his 
own,  congratulates  his  co-reformers  "  that  the  movement 
set  on  foot  is  conducted  under  a  neutral  government." 
Christians  must  wish  them  well. 

Meanwhile  Christianity  has  won  greater  triumphs  from 
Islam  in  India  than  even  experts  had  believed.  The  Rev. 
Maulvi  Imad-ud-din,  D.D.,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the 
famous  Mohammedan  saint  Qutub  Jamal,  who  again  is  a 
descendant  of  the  ancient  royal  house  of  Persia,  was 
invited  to  attend  the  "  World's  Parliament  of  Religions  " 
at  Chicago,  and  to  read  a  paper.     He  declined  the  invita- 

^  See  Rev.  Edward  Sell's  remarkable  article  on  "The  New  Islam" 
in  the  Contemjjorary  Review  for  August  1893. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      223 

tion  to  attend,  but  sent  a  paper,  wrillen  by  himself  in 
Urdu,  and  translated  into  English  by  Dr.  Henry  Martyn 
Clark.  His  subject  is  "Christian  Efforts  amongst  Indian 
Mohammedans  ;  being  an  Account  of  the  Effects  of  the 
Teaching  of  the  Bible  amongst  the  Mohammedans  of 
India,  together  with  a  Consideration  of  the  Question  how 
many  of  them  have  become  Christians,  and  why."  The 
writer  and  the  paper  are  alike  remarkable  : — 

**  I  was  at  one  time  a  Mohamraedan,  though  by  the  grace  of  God  I 
am  now  a  Christian.  I  know  my  forefathers  by  name  for  tlie  last 
thirty  generations.  They  were  all  Mohammedans,  and  amongst  them 
have  been  some  renowned  champions  of  the  faith  of  Islam.  I  was 
born  in  the  town  of  Panipat,  near  Delhi,  about  the  year  1830,  and 
from  my  earliest  youth  my  stedfast  desire  was  to  learn  all  things  con- 
cerning ]\rohammedanism,  and  to  spend  my  life  in  its  defence  and  in 
its  propagation.  I  was  sent  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years  to  Agra  for 
my  education,  and  there  I  was  taught  in  matters  concerning  the  faith 
of  Islam  by  men  of  light  and  learning  and  note  amongst  Moham- 
medans, and  in  order  that  my  secular  education  should  not  suffer,  I 
at  this  time  entered  as  a  student  in  the  Government  College  at  Agra, 
and  in  that  institution  I  remained  five  years.  Having  completed 
my  curriculum  in  Oriental  learning,  I  passed  out  of  the  College  with 
credit,  having  obtained  my  degree  and  testimonials  with  honour. 
From  boyhood  until  the  year  1860,  I  most  earnestly  and  true-heartedly 
observed  all  the  precepts  of  Mohammedanism  in  their  minutest  details 
with  much  pain  and  weariness,  and  I  dived  also  into  the  waters  of 
Sufiism  and  tested  it.  For  three  years  I  preached  in  the  Royal  Jama 
Musjid  of  Agra,  and  for  many  years  I  preached  in  numberless  mosques 
all  over  the  country,  I  was  a  determined  opponent  of  the  Christian 
faith,  but  I  found  nothing  in  Mohammedanism  from  which  an 
unprejudiced  man  might  in  his  heart  derive  true  hope  and  real 
comfort,  though  I  searched  for  it  earnestly  in  the  Koran,  the 
Traditions,  and  also  in  Sufiism.  Rites,  ceremonies,  and  theories  I 
found  in  abundance,  but  not  the  slightest  spiritual  benefit  does  a  man 
get  by  acting  on  them.  He  remains  fast  held  in  the  grip  of  darkness 
and  death.  As  the  result  of  much  such  painful  experience  and  quite 
of  its  own  motion  my  heart  was  no  longer  willing  to  submit  to  the 
profitless  weariness  of  Mohammedanism,  nevertheless  I  thought  none 
the  better  of  Christianity,  nor  did  I  cease  to  oppose  it  with  all  my 
might. 

"  In  1864  I  met  an  aged,  God-fearing,  honourable  English  layman 
who  was  in  Government  service,  and  in  conversation  with  him  the 


224  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

talk  happened  to  turn  on  the  true  faith — which  one  is  it  amongst 
the  many  faiths  of  the  world  ?  He  contended  the  Christian  faith  is 
the  true  one  ;  I  maintained  that  there  was  not  one  that  was  true. 
All  faiths,  I  held,  were  merely  a  collection  of  the  thoughts  and 
customs  of  men,  and  that  nothing  whatever  was  to  be  gained  by 
following  any  of  them,  and  I  told  him  that  this  observation  of  mine 
was  the  result  of  years  of  painstaking  and  conscientious  endeavour 
and  inquiry.  'But,'  said  the  gentleman,  'have  you  really  honestly 
examined  the  Christian  faith  and  have  you  found  it  lacking?'  I 
said,  'Yes,  I  have,  and  I  have  found  it  false.'  I  lied.  He  replied, 
'Is  it  really  true,  this  that  you  say  that  you  have  examined 
Christianity  and  found  it  wrong  ? '  Hearing  the  word  '  true '  from 
his  mouth  I  was  ashamed  before  God,  and  I  said,  '  Sir,  I  have  not 
yet  myself  tested  this  faith,  nor  have  I  as  yet  read  the  Bible  and 
informed  myself  concerning  its  principles,  but  having  read  all  that 
the  Mohammedan  controversialists  have  to  say  against  Christianity, 
on  the  strength  of  that  I  declare  that  this  religion  also  is  false,'  and 
this  really  was  the  true  state  of  the  case.  He  said  to  me,  '  And  what 
answer  will  you  give  to  God  at  the  last  day  ?  He  has  given  the 
light  of  reason  to  every  one,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  each  man  to  use  the 
reason  God  has  so  given.  You  have  not  yet  exercised  your  reason 
concerning  the  faith  of  Christ ;  and  yet  you  declare  it  to  be  false  on 
the  strength  of  the  mere  statement  of  others.  This  is  to  follow  others 
blindly  instead  of  honestly  inquiring  for  yourself  into  the  matter.' 

"These  words  so  pierced  my  heart  that  from  that  moment  I  gave 
myself  up  whole-heartedly  to  examine  into  the  Christian  faith.  This 
I  did  unremittingly  for  two  years,  and  having  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  religion  of  Christ  is  the  true  faith,  I  was  baptized  on  April 
29th,  1866.  From  that  day  to  this,  for  nearly  twenty-seven  years,  it 
has  been  my  thought  night  and  day  how  to  rescue  Mohammedans 
from  the  errors  in  which  they  are  plunged  ;  and  by  the  grace  of  God 
I  have  written  a  number  of  books,  big  and  little,  for  their  benefit, 
twenty-four  in  all.  These  have  been  printed  and  circulated  by  the 
Punjab  Religious  Book  Society.  A  number  have  passed  through 
several  editions,  and  all  are  at  this  time  sold  over  the  Avhole  country. 
Now  whatever  seemed  to  me  to  be  necessary  to  write  for  Moham- 
medans I  have  written.  I  am  now  engaged  on  a  Life  of  Christ  in 
Urdu.  This  will  appear  in  a  series  of  books,  of  which  each  will  be 
published  as  soon  as  it  is  ready.  The  first  book  of  the  series  has 
already  appeared,  the  second  is  now  ready  for  the  press,  and  the  third 
is  being  written. 

"  Even  as  the  Lord  has  had  mercy  on  me  and  has  called  me  into 
His  Church,  in  like  manner  has  He  shown  His  grace  to  mauy  other 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA       225 

Mohammedans  also,  who  too  have  now  been  or  are  being  called  by 
Him.  I  now  wish  to  consider  two  questions  :  firstly,  to  what  extent 
any  result  has  been  produced  in  the  way  of  direct  accessions  to 
Christianity  from  amongst  Mohammedans  ;  and,  secondly,  how,  if 
any,  has  this  result  been  brought  about  ? 

"As  regards  the  first  point,  let  it  be  noted  it  is  now  some  100 
years  since  Christian  missions  were  commenced  in  India.  Before 
that  time  Mohammedans  spoke  of  the  Christian  faith  in  the  terms  of 
the  Koran  and  Hadis  Traditions  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  looked 
upon  as  degraded  and  erroneous  by  the  people.  Since  the  year  1800, 
when  William  Carey  commenced  work  in  a  part  of  Bengal,  things 
have  gradually  gone  forward  until  now  the  Christian  faith  is  discussed 
all  over  the  land.  Only  forty-five  years  have  passed  since  Christianity 
was  introduced  into  the  Punjab.  When  Carey  landed  in  India,  the 
condition  of  the  land  was  such  that  from  the  standpoint  of  mere 
worldly  wisdom  it  was  simply  impossible  that  the  Christian  religion 
should  spread  in  this  country.  The  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  of 
that  time  were  strong  in  their  faith,  most  bigoted  and  hard  of  heart, 
and  were  firmly  entrenched  behind  the  citadel  of  their  own  pride  and 
overweening  self-sacrifice.  Nevertheless,  what  worldly  wisdom  could 
not  see  was  revealed  to  the  eye  of  the  Christian  faith  of  Carey,  to  wit, 
that  to  Christ  shall  assuredly  the  victory  be  in  this  land.  He  will 
conquer  in  India  now,  even  as  He  has  conquered  in  other  lands  in  the 
past.  This,  too,  is  the  intense  conviction  nowadays  of  us  Christians 
here,  and  our  expectation  from  God  is  that  some  day  our  land  will 
certainly  be  Christian  even  as  Great  Britain  now  is.  However  much 
our  enemies,  Hindus,  Mohammedans,  Dayanandis,  and  others,  may 
oppose  and  revile,  the  time  is  most  assuredly  coming  when  they  will 
not  be  found  even  for  the  seeking.  We  shall  have  only  two  sorts  of 
people  then — the  people  of  God  and  the  people  of  the  world  who  serve 
their  own  lusts.  The  trend  of  national  life  amongst  us  is  now 
setting  swiftly  and  surely  in  this  direction.  Thus  also  has  it  ever 
been  in  the  history  of  the  past.  Such  also,  as  may  be  historically 
demonstrated,  are  invariably  the  results  of  education. " 

Maulvi  Imad-ud-din  then  mentions  the  principal  con- 
verts from  Islam  since  Abdul  Masih,  who  copied  Henry 
Marty n's  Persian  New  Testament  in  1810,  and  was 
ordained  by  Bishop  Heber.  He  gives  the  names  with 
brief  biographies  of  no  fewer  than  117  men  of  position 
and  influence,  of  whom  62  became  clergy  and  leading  men 
in  several  of  the  India  missions,  and  57  are  gentlemen 
occupying  various  positions,  official  and  professional ; — 

Q 


226  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

"It  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  how  many  Mohammedans  have 
become  converts,  for  no  separate  list  is  kept  in  missions  of  converts 
from  Islam  ;  all  converts  are  entered  alike  in  the  Church  of  Christ. 
The  figures  in  one  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  Churches  in  the 
Amritsar  district  show  that  in  forty  years  there  have  been  956 
baptisms ;  amongst  this  number  there  are  152  Mohammedan  con- 
verts. The  register  of  the  Baptist  Mission  at  Delhi  shows  twenty- 
eight  such  converts.  Nowadays  there  are  Churches  all  over  India, 
and  in  every  Church  there  are  baptisms  from  amongst  Mohammedans. 
I  have  quoted  the  figures  for  two  Churches  ;  from  these  it  may  be 
inferred  as  regards  the  others  what  baptisms  take  place  from  amongst 
Mohammedans.  Amongst  those  baptized  there  are  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  men  and  women, 
children,  learned  and  unlearned,  tradesmen,  servants,  all  kinds  and 
classes  of  Mohammedans  whom  the  Lord  our  God  hath  called  are 
coming  into  His  Church.  .  .  . 

"What  may  we  learn  from  the  things  that  I  have  stated  ?  First, 
then,  it  is  evident  that  learned  Mohammedans  are  coming  in  larger 
numbers  into  the  fold  of  Clirist  than  the  unlearned,  because  they  are 
better  educated  ;  and,  secondly,  that  so  far  from  the  situation  being 
devoid  of  hope,  it  is  big  with  blessings.  There  was  a  time  when 
the  conversion  of  a  Mohammedan  to  Christianity  was  looked  on  as  a 
wonder.  Now  they  have  come  and  are  coming  in  their  thousands. 
Compared  -with  converts  from  amongst  Hindus,  converts  from  amongst 
Mohammedans  are  fewer  far.  Where  there  are  ten  thousand  from 
amongst  Hindus,  there  are  a  thousand  from  amongst  Mohammedans. 
This  backwardness  to  come  into  the  Church  of  Christ  is  but  part  and 
parcel  of  Mohammedan  backwardness  and  sluggishness  in  all  other 
matters.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  we  may  thank  God  that  such  numbers 
have  become  Christians  from  amongst  them,  and  are  now  jealous  for 
the  faith,  and  are  an  example  to  their  brethren  still  in  Mohammedan 
darkness. 

"It  still  remains  to  be  considered  in  what  way  the  results  of 
which  I  have  spoken  in  the  first  part  of  this  paper  have  been  produced. 
The  hidden  and  real  cause,  of  course,  is  the  grace  of  God.  He, 
according  to  His  promises,  is  gathering  into  His  Church  from  amongst 
all  nations  those  that  are  being  saved,  even  as  He  has  done  from  the 
first  (Acts  xi.  47).     The  other  causes  are  certain  manifest  things. 

"The  first  is  the  freedom  for  individuals  to  follow  their  own 
beliefs  which  the  British  have  conferred  on  India.  This  is  a  great 
blessing,  which  God  has  as  yet  withheld  from  the  peoples  under  the 
sway  of  Mohammedan  rulers.  When  tolerance  and  freedom  obtain 
in  those  lands,  there  also  will  many  become  Christians. 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA       227 

"The  second  leusoii  is  that  God  has  been  pleased  to  send  His  bless- 
ing on  the  efforts,  self-denial,  and  labours  of  loving-hearted,  devoted 
saints  of  His  in  this  land. 

"The  third  reason  is  one  which  obtains  especially  in  India, 
because  of  it  learned  Mohammedans  are  being  converted  to 
Christianity,  and  it  is  this  :  From  1850  till  the  present  day,  great 
discussions  and  continual  strivings  about  things  religious  have  gone 
on  between  Christians  and  Mohammedans.  These  began  in  Agra, 
and  by  means  of  these  Mohammedans  and  others  as  well  have  not 
only  learnt  how  to  investigate  faiths,  but  have  been  very  greatly 
incited  by  these  people  to  speak  aud  think.  So  the  hidden  things  of 
various  faiths  have  been  thoroughly  brought  to  light.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  Christians  and  Mohammedans  now  to  engage  in  further 
controversy.  All  about  Mohammedanism  that  it  was  necessary  to 
say  has  been  said,  and.  whatever  Mohammedans  could  do  against 
Christianity  they  have  done  to  the  utmost.  We  may  noAV  truly  say 
the  battle  has  been  fought  out  in  India,  not  only  between  Christianity 
and  Mohammedanism,  but  also  between  Christianity  and  all  that  is 
opposed  to  it  in  all  the  earth. " 

The  supernatural  power  of  Christianity,  and  the 
secondary  influence  of  Western  science  and  literature,^ 
have  thus  been  allowed,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
Asia,  fairly  to  take  their  place  side  by  side  with  all  the 
agencies  of  the  Hindu,  the  Mohammedan,  and  the  aboriginal 
religious  and  social  systems.  The  result  is  a  revolution, 
silent,  subtle,  and  far-reaching,  which  works  in  each  suc- 
cessive generation  with  increasing  force.  Gradually  the 
Hindus  themselves,  and  still  more  a  few  of  their  leaders, 
are  becoming  conscious  of  a  force  and  a  pressure  which  is 
transforming  their  society,  if  not  themselves,  and  which 
they  can  only  blindly  resist.  Now  it  is  the  physical  signs 
or  instruments  of  the  revolution  which  the  mob  attack ; 
now  it  is  the  spiritual  force  behind  the  whole  British 
influence  which  their  leaders  recognise  with  a  sort  of 
despair.  The  first  of  these  forms  of  discontent  was  lately 
seen  in  a  riot  of  profound  significance  which  attracted  no 
attention  in  this  country.     Into   the  filthiest  and  most 

^  See  the  very  suggestive  paper  of  Rev.  F.  E.  Slater,  Bangalor,  on 
"Work  among  the  Educated  Classes  in  India,"  in  vol.  i.  of  the  Report 
of  the  Third  Decennial  Missionary  Conference  held  at  Bombay,  1892-93. 


228  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

superstitious  city  of  India,  Benares,  waterworks  were  being 
introduced.  The  Brahmans  had  long  boasted  that  the 
sacred  Ganges  would  never  suffer  the  indignity  of  being 
bridged,  and  yet  two  bridges  far  above  the  city  had  been 
thrown  across  it.  At  last  the  great  Benares  bridge  itself 
spanned  the  mighty  river,  the  Dufferin  Bridge,  and  then 
came  the  waterworks.  The  Hindu  mob  rushed  at  water- 
pipes,  steam-engines,  telegraph  wires,  and  railway  stations, 
and  wOTiid  have  attempted  to  destroy  even  the  bridge  but 
for  the  interference  of  the  troops.  They  attacked  the 
house  of  the  most  enlightened  of  their  own  religion,  the 
Eaja  Shiva  Prosad,  C.I.E.,  considering  him  a  traitor  to 
his  faith  and  city.  The  spiritual  fermentation  caused  by 
education  and  positive  Christian  truth  expresses  itself  in 
vain  lamentations  and  yearning  aspirations  such  as  this, 
from  Pundit  Sivanath  Sastri  of  the  Sadharan  Brahma 
Somaj : — 

*  Many  religious  movements  are  now  agitating  our  country.  Men's 
minds  are  now  filled  with  doubts  regarding  those  things  which  for- 
merly commanded  respect.  When  a  hurricane  drives  the  waters  of  the 
ocean  along  the  beds  of  rivers,  they  swell  and  overflow  their  banks, 
and  inundate  the  surrounding  countiy.  Thatched  roofs  of  houses, 
trees,  logs  of  wood,  are  found  floating  on  the  waters  and  diifting  with 
the  current.  Here  men  and  birds  and  beasts,  in  their  struggle  for  life, 
get  upon  a  log  of  wood,  which  sinks  under  their  weight,  and  they  are 
drowned.  There,  perhaps,  some  serpents  are  found  coiling  round  the 
floating  branches  of  a  tree,  and  men,  nevertheless,  struggling  to  save 
themselves  by  catching  hold  of  those  branches.  Such  is  the  plight  in 
which  our  countrymen  are  at  present.  A  great  flood  has  come  and 
swept  over  the  face  of  the  country,  carrying  away  the  roofs  of  the 
edifices  of  past  creeds  and  customs.  Drowning  men  in  their  despair 
are  catching  at  whatever  they  find  nearest  their  hands.  They  are 
finding  it  difficult  to  obtain  peace  of  mind.  They  cannot  rest  on  any 
beliefs.  What  a  mom-nful  state  of  things  it  is  1  Peace  and  rest  have 
become  unattainable." 

The  working  of  this  silent  revolution  may  be  traced  in 

the  position  of  the  native  Christians.  The  increase  of  the 
native  Christians  in  numbers,  and  the  positions  which 
they  are  fast  winning  for  themselves  in  every  walk  of  life, 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      229 

and  especially  in  Government  service,  are  alarming  the 
Brahmans.  In  Madras,  where  Christianity  is  oldest  and 
strongest,  we  find  the  native  Christian  papers  "anxiously 
awaiting  the  results  of  the  census  of  1891,  for  we  antici- 
pate a  very  large  increase  in  the  native  Christian  popula- 
tion." That  of  the  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  is  10  J  per 
cent  in  the  decade,  while  that  of  the  Christians  is  known 
to  have  been  86  per  cent.  "  If  this  increase  has  been  kept 
up  till  1891  it  will  be  one  of  the  most  wonderful  triumphs 
which  Christianity  has  ever  had  in  the  world."  Their 
native  Christian  Association  has  begun  to  issue  pamphlets 
on  the  position  and  prospects  of  the  community.  The 
first  on  "  Educational  Progress  among  Hindus  "  called  forth 
this  comment  from  the  Hindu  on  the  Christians : — 

"Some  of  their  women  are  highly  educated,  and  this  fact  coupled 
with  the  other — namely,  that  they  have  no  caste  restrictions — gives 
them  an  advantage  which  is  not  possessed  by  the  Hindus.  The 
Director  of  Public  Instruction  in  his  latest  reports  remarks,  *  I  have 
frequently  drawn  attention  to  the  educational  progress  of  the  native 
Christian  community.  There  can  be  no  question  that  if  this  com- 
munity pursues  with  steadiness  the  present  policy  of  its  teachers, 
with  the  immense  advantages  it  possesses  in  the  way  of  educational 
institutions,  in  the  course  of  a  generation  it  will  have  secm-ed  a  pre- 
ponderating position  in  all  the  gi'eat  professions,  and  possibly,  too,  in 
the  industrial  enterprise  of  the  country — in  the  latter  because  no  section 
of  the  community  has  entered  on  the  new  departure  in  education  with 
greater  earnestness  than  the  native  Christians.'  This  rapid  progi-ess 
in  education  naturally  gives  them  a  corresponding  claim  on  the  patron- 
age of  Government,  as  it  gives  them  also  a  share  in  other  occupations 
of  the  country.  Recently  a  native  Christian  barrister  was  appointed 
as  Acting  Administrator-Gen  eral," 

In  South  India  alone  there  were  44,225  native  Chris- 
tians at  school  and  college,  or  61  per  cent  of  boys  and  28 
per  cent  of  girls  of  a  school-going  age,  while  the  percentage 
of  the  Presidency  as  a  whole  is  23  of  boys  and  3  of  girls. 
The  native  Christians  are  only  a  fortieth  of  the  population 
as  yet,  but  more  than  8  per  cent  of  the  students  attending 
college  and  of  the  graduates  of  the  university  are  native 
Christians.    The  political  bearing  of  this,  from  the  Govern- 


230  THE  CONVERSION  OE  INDIA 

merit's  point  of  view,  is  evident.  Christians  are  loyal,  and 
not  passively  but  actively  so.  The  next  generation  of 
ruling  men  in  India  will  have  a  supply  of  highly  loyal  and 
trained  native  Christians  from  which  to  draw  for  the  ordi- 
nary ranks  of  the  local  services,  as  well  as  for  help  in  any 
crisis  which  may  come  upon  the  Empire.  Even  The  Hindu 
newspaper  acknowledges  that  this  community  "  in  politics, 
industry,  and  the  domestic  and  civil  virtues,  has  special 
advantages  enabling  it  to  set  an  example  to  the  Hindus." 
No  feature  of  the  rapid  progress  of  education  in  South 
India  is  so  remarkable  as  the  extent  to  which  the  native 
Christians  are  distancing  the  Hindu  and  Mohammedan 
communities  from  which  they  have  sprung.  The  well- 
known  missionary,  Dr.  William  Miller,  C.I.E.,  who  has 
virtually  created  the  Madras  Christian  College,^  giving  to 

^  See  Days  of  Grace  in  India  by  Henry  Stanley  Newman,  of  tke 
Society  of  Friends  (Leominster).  He  writes  :  "  The  Christian  College  is 
a  monument  of  large-hearted  Scottish  philanthropy.  .  .  .  AYe  found 
Mr.  Miller  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  attentive  students,  to  whom  he  was 
talking  and  giving  instruction  in  that  easy  way  which  showed  at  once 
his  marvellous  power  of  winning  boys  and  coutrol  over  them.  He 
has  about  one  thousand  students  in  the  Institution,  and  is  the  soul 
and  life  of  the  whole,  and  the  College  is  manned  with  an  exceptionally 
good  statf  of  competent  professors  and  teachers.  What  would  not 
some  of  the  grouse-shooting  billiard-playing  gentlemen  of  England  give 
for  the  honest  joy  and  pleasure  Miller  finds  in  this  work  for  Christ  in 
the  tropics  !  .  .  .  The  affection  of  these  students  for  Mr.  Miller  is 
something  beautiful,  yet  nothing  but  the  power  of  God  can  make 
them  Christian  converts.  Though  only  a  small  proportion  of  them 
actually  make  an  open  profession  of  Christianity,  Mr.  Miller  tells  me 
that  there  is  an  immense  change  going  on  in  the  feeling  of  the  people 
in  favour  of  Christianity.  I  inquired  what  proportion  of  the  scholars 
were  Christians.  He  replied  there  were  about  one  hundred  Chris- 
tians to  nine  hundred  Hindus.  Who  can  measure  the  influence  for 
good  exerted  upon  these  nine  hundred  Hindus,  as  they  daily  receive 
systematic  scriptural  instruction  from  Christian  teachers  in  their  re- 
spective class-rooms  ?  Some  may  imagine  they  endure  the  Bible  lesson 
for  the  sake  of  the  privileges  of  the  College.  On  the  contrary,  Mr. 
Miller  says,  '  The  Bible  lesson  is  one  of  the  most  popular  lessons  we 
have. '  It  happened  to  be  the  hour  for  Bible  study  when  we  visited 
the  College.     We  entered  one  class-room  after  another  with  Mr.  Miller, 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      231 

it  thirty  years  of  his  life  and  much  of  his  fortune,  haa 
made  an  analysis  of  the  list  of  graduates  sent  out  by  that 
one  college,  which,  though  governed  by  the  Free  Church 
of  Scotland,  represents  a  union  of  all  the  evangelical 
missions  in  South  India.  Of  650  native  graduates  now 
living,  100  are  Christians.  Only  seven  are  Mohammedans, 
and  of  the  rest  two-thirds  are  Brahmans,  and  one-third 
non- Brahman  Hindus.  Yet  of  the  general  population 
from  which  the  college  draws  its  students.  Christians  form 
less  than  a  fiftieth,  while  the  Christian  graduates  are  be- 
tween a  seventh  and  a  sixth. 

The  political  prospects  of  the  conversion  of  India,  in 
producing  amongst  its  races,  in  territories  covering  the  ex- 
tent of  Europe,  a  sense  of  nationality  and  the  capacity  for 
self-government,  arise  legitimately  out  of  the  consideration 
of  their  evangelisation.  Even  the  Mohammedans  have 
learned  submission  to  "  the  powers  that  be  ordained  of  God," 
and  hold  aloof  from  the  pretensions  of  the  National  Con- 
gress to  an  impossible  foim  of  representative  govern- 
ment. Many  of  the  native  Christians  take  their  place  in 
that  movement.  From  the  first,  Christianity,  identified 
with  liberty  as  well  as  submission  to  lawful  authority,  has 
been  the  political  friend  of  the  natives  of  India  of  every 
religion.  It  was  Lord  William  Bentinck  who,  in  the  early 
Duff  era,  opened  the  subordinate  service  to  them  freely. 
It  was  Macaulay  and  Charles  Trevelyan,  associated  with 
these  two  in  1830-35,  who  opened  the  covenanted  Civil 
Service  on  the  broad  basis  of  the  equal  treatment  of  all 
classes  of  the  Queen's  natural-born  subjects,  and  the  Queen- 
Empress  confirmed  that  in  the  Imperial  Proclamation. 
Justice  has  been  done  as  Caesar  and  Akbar  never  did  it. 
The  native  Christians  and  the  many  "  almost  Christians  " 

quite  unexpectedly.  "We  found  the  young  men  sitting  thoughtfully  at 
their  desks  with  their  Bibles  before  them,  the  teacher  sitting  below  at 
his  table  giving  the  lesson  and  questioning  them  on  it.  In  England 
we  may  call  such  men  'heathen,'  but  I  never  saw  more  reverent 
attention  at  a  Bible  class  anywhere,  or  more  complete  evidence  of 
sustained  interest  than  in  these  classes,  where  nine-tenths  of  the 
scholars  profess  Hinduism." 


232  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

in  the  National  Congress,  having  succeeded  in  opening  the 
consultative  Legislative  Councils  to  a  wider  number 
nominated  by  public  bodies  like  the  Universities  and 
Chambers  of  Commerce,  will  do  well  to  turn  their  atten- 
tion to  social  reforms  springing  out  of  Christian  and 
humane  principles.  That  the  Bengalees,  Tamils,  and 
Marathas  of  the  coast,  whose  intellectual  and  moral  growth 
is  arrested  by  their  sexual  and  social  customs,  should 
aspire  to  govern  the  martial  and  the  Musalman  races  of 
Hindustan  and  the  Dekkan,  is  suicidal^ — until  all  are 
Christians. 

Then,  in  matters  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  political, 
and  through  the  ecclesiastical,  the  millions  of  India 
may,  according  to  their  own  genius,  have  learned  to 
follow  the  settlement  and  the  growth  of  the  Christian 
Churches  and  powers  of  Europe.  The  Church  in  the 
Punjab  ^  and  in  Burma  will  be  different  from  the  Church 

^  The  Hindu-Moliainmedan  riots  in  Rangoon  and  Bombay  in  1893 
and  elsewhere  are  a  commentary  on  this. 

2  When  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  was  dying,  in  1872,  he  described  a 
dream  which  filled  him  with  happiness  :  "I  have  had  such  a  glorious 
dream  !  I  thought  the  whole  Punjab  was  suddenly  Christianised,  and 
such  noble  fellows,  with  their  native  Churches  and  clergy."  Contrast 
this  picture,  from  Mr.  Bateman's  Report  of  the  C.  M.  S.  Narowal 
Mission,  Punjab,  with  the  experience  of  the  great  missionaries  of  the 
Middle  Ages  of  Europe,  like  Anskar,  Olaf,  and  Otto  of  Bamberg. 
* '  The  site  of  the  new  church,  seated  for  300  worshippers,  with  cloisters 
on  three  sides  of  a  square  where  2000  more  are  accommodated — the 
whole  ground  measuring  an  acre  and  a  quarter — was  given  by  the 
Hindu  owners.  The  Mahant  (or  abbot)  of  Narowal  was  the  first  to 
make  over  his  share.  He  had  been  a  pupil  in  the  mission  school  in 
the  days  of  Dr.  Bruce,  and  he  pointed  out  to  us  that  the  ground 
which  he  was  givdng  had  held  the  pegs  of  Dr.  Bruce's  tent  the  first 
time  (more  than  30  years  ago)  that  any  missionary  had  encamped  at 
Narowal.  The  other  owners,  five  in  number,  were  Sikhs,  in  no  way 
under  the  orders  of  the  Mahant.  They  too  freely  gave  their  shares  for 
the  Christian  church,  only  stipulating  that  they  should  remove  the 
timber  before  doing  so.  The  deed  of  gift  has  been  signed  and 
registered  in  the  ordinary  legal  manner,  but  it  was  thought  fit  first  of 
all  in  the  Bishop's  presence  to  go  through  the  Punjabi  form  of  be- 
stowal and  consecration  to  sacred  uses.      So  the  Hindus  met  the 


THE  PROSPECTS  OF  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA      233 

in  Bengal,  Madras,  or  the  Konkan  of  Bombay.  Even  the 
most  opportunist  of  English  statesmen,  Lord  Palmerston, 
learned  so  much  from  the  Mutiny  as  to  declare  to  a  de- 
putation headed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1859, 
"  We  seem  to  be  all  agreed  as  to  the  end.  It  is  not  only 
our  duty,  but  it  is  our  interest  to  promote  the  diffusion  of 
Christianity  as  far  as  possible  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  India." 

When  our  Lord  selected  and  sent  forth  the  Twelve, 
first  of  all,  on  a  mission  confined  to  their  own  Jewish 
countrymen.  He  "  appointed  other  Seventy  also,  and  sent 
them  two  and  two  before  His  face  unto  every  city  and 
place  whither  He  Himself  would  come"  (St  Luke  x.  1). 
Eepresentatives  of  the  missionaries  of  the  kingdom  to  all 
peoples  in  aU  ages,  they  returned  again  with  joy,  saying, 
"Lord,  even  the  devils  are  subject  unto  us  through  Thy 
name."  Let  all  true  Christians,  of  the  younger  branch 
of  the  Indo-European  family,  who  having  inherited  their 
faith  rejoice  in  their  duty  to  their  elder  brethren  in  India, 

Christians  on  a  liigh  mound  wMch  had  been  a  fort  in  days  gone  by, 
and  which  now  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  site  in  question.  The 
donors  were  introduced  to  the  Bishop,  and  declared  to  him  that  freely 
and  in  the  fear  of  God  they  were  making  the  property  over  to  the 
Christian  community,  and  then  the  leading  man  poured  out  a  bottle  of 
oil  on  the  spot,  and  the  others  distributed  sugar  to  everybody  there. 
The  Bishop  was  then  presented  with  a  spade  of  most  business-like  pro- 
portions, and  his  lordship  tiu-ned  the  first  sod  much  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  spectators,  who,  however,  soon  followed  suit,  and  there 
was  hardly  a  Christian  from  3  years  old  to  70  who  did  not  ply  that 
same  spade  in  turn."  The  church  was  opened  in  1893,  the  Hindu 
abbot  lending  his  temple  bell  to  summon  the  Christian  worshippers. 
After  the  dedication  service  followed  the  confirmation  of  38  cate- 
chumens and  Communion.  Of  the  former  a  spectator  writes  : — *'  It  was 
a  wonderful  sight.  Side  by  side  with  the  poor  outcast  labourer  and 
the  Hindu  convert  knelt  the  rich  landowner,  the  miserable  supersti- 
tion of  the  one  and  the  severe  Mohammedanism  of  the  other  were  alike 
things  of  the  past,  and  the  proud  ex-Mohammedan  and  outcasted 
Ghoora,  having  looked  into  the  face  of  Jesus  the  Elder  Brother,  looked 
on  one  another  and  found  they  too  were  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  It  was 
an  object  lesson,  and  one  on  the  learning  of  which  depends  the  uni- 
fication of  India." 


234  THE  CONVERSION  OP  INDIA 

take  heart  from  the  Lord's  own  experience  while  they, 
like  the  Seventy,  are  faithfully  toiling  :  "  I  was  beholding 
{'EOeiopovv)  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  heaven  .... 
Blessed  are  the  eyes  which  see  the  things  that  ye  see." 

Every  British  Christian,  every  one  who  speaks  the 
English  language,  has  a  solemn  mission  from  God  for  the 
conversion  of  India. 


XI 

INTERCESSION  AND  THANKSGIVING 

"  Eeair  Thou  in  heaven  Thy  dvelling  place,  and  do  according  to  all  that 
the  stranger  calleth  to  Thee  for  ;  that  all  people  of  the  earth  may  know  Thy 
name,  to  fear  Thee." — 1  Kings  viii.  43. 

These  forms  of  Missionary  Intercession  and  Thanksgiving 
belong  to  the  whole  Catholic  Church.  Some  have  been 
prepared  by  Bishop  Lancelot  Andrewes,  and  in  more  recent 
times  by  Archbishop  Sumner  and  by  Bishop  Cotton  when 
Metropolitan  of  India.  Others  have  long  been  used  by 
the  Church  Missionary  and  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
Societies. 

I  INTEECESSION. 

Subjects  of  Daily  Missionary  Intercession  and 
Thanksgiving. 

Sunday — The  whole  World. 

Mmday — The  whole  Church  of  Christ. 

Tuesday — India  and  the  East. 

Wednesday — Africa. 

Thursday — Oceania. 

Friday — The  Jews. 

Saturday — The  Christian  Dispersion — Missionaries, 
Emigrants,  Sailors,  Soldiers,  and  our  Countrymen 
abroad. 


236  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

Let  US  pray  for  Obedience  to  the  Lord's  Commis- 
sion : — 

Almighty  God,  who  by  Thy  Son  Jesus  Christ  didst 
give  commandment  to  the  holy  Apostles,  that  they  should 
go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature :  Grant  to  us  whom  Thou  hast  called  into  Thy 
Church  a  ready  will  to  obey  Thy  Word,  and  fill  us  with 
a  hearty  desire  to  make  Thy  way  known  upon  earth,  .Thy 
saving  health  among  all  nations.  Look  with  compassion 
upon  the  heathen  that  have  not  known  Thee,  and  on  the 
multitudes  that  are  scattered  abroad  as  sheep  having  no 
shepherd.  0  heavenly  Father,  Lord  of  the  harvest,  have 
respect,  we  beseech  Thee,  to  our  prayers,  and  send  forth 
labourers  into  Thine  harvest.  Fit  and  prepare  them  by 
Thy  grace  for  the  work  of  their  ministry :  give  them  the 
spirit  of  power  and  of  love  and  of  a  sound  mind  ;  strengthen 
them  to  endure  hardness;  and  grant  that  by  their  life 
and  doctrine  they  may  set  forth  Thy  glory,  and  set  for- 
ward the  salvation  of  all  men;  through  Jesus  Christ  our. 
Lord.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon  : — 

0  God,  who  hast  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men 
to  dwell  upon  the  face  of  Thy  whole  earth,  and  who  didst 
send  Thy  blessed  Son  to  preach  peace  to  them  that  are 
afar  off  and  to  them  that  are  nigh,  grant  that  all  the 
people  of  Hindu,  Buddhist,  and  Mohammedan  lands  may 
feel  after  Thee  and  find  Thee ;  and  hasten,  0  Lord,  the 
fulfilment  of  Thy  promise  to  pour  out  Thy  Spirit  upon 
all  flesh. 

0  Lord  God,  who  rulest  in  the  kingdoms  of  men  and 
givest  them  to  whomsoever  Thou  wilt,  we  present  our 
humble  supplications  before  Thee  in  behalf  of  India.  We 
acknowledge  Thine  overruling  Providence  in  having  given 
India  unto  us  for  a  possession.  Make  us  faithful,  we 
beseech  Thee,  in  so  great  a  trust.  Give  us  a  spirit  of 
true  compassion  for  the  multitudes  in  that  land,  who  yet 
walk  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death.     Suffer  them 


INTERCESSION  237 

no  longer  to  bow  down  to  idols  which  their  own  hands 
have  made.  Lead  them  from  the  corrupt  worship  of  false 
gods  to  worship  Thee  in  the  beauty  of  holiness.  Have 
pity  on  their  blindness,  their  misplaced  confidence,  their 
mistaken  zeal,  their  self-inflicted  sufferings.  Teach  them 
the  pure  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  of  Thy  blessed  Son. 
Deliver  them  from  their  dread  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 
Raise  up  among  them,  0  Lord,  teachers  of  Thy  truth,  who 
may  lead  them  to  embrace  the  holy  faith  of  Thy  Church ; 
for  Thy  mercy's  sake,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Mohammedans  : — 

0  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  may  it  please  Thee  to  have  mercy 
upon  Mohammedans,  and  bring  them  to  confess  Thee  as 
the  Word  consubstantial  with  the  Father.  Reveal  Thy- 
self to  them  as  the  Lord  of  Glory  manifest  in  the  flesh. 
Cleanse  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts  by  the  inspiration  of 
Thy  Holy  Spirit.  Mould  their  dispositions  in  conformity 
with  Thine  own  gentleness  and  meekness ;  for  Thine  own 
mercy's  sake,  who  art,  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  one  God,  world  without  end.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  China  and  Japan  : — 

O  Lord,  who  hast  taught  us  that  the  heathen  shall  fear 
Thy  Name,  and  all  the  kings  of  the  earth  Thy  majesty, 
when  Thou  shalt  build  up  Zion  and  make  Thy  glory  to 
appear ;  fulfil,  we  beseech  Thee,  Thy  word  that  these  shall 
come  from  far,  and  these  from  the  west,  and  these  from 
the  land  of  Sinim.  Make  all  Thy  mountains  a  way,  and 
let  Thy  highways  be  exalted,  for  the  feet  of  them  that 
bring  good  tidings  of  good,  that  publish  salvation ;  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Aprica  : — 

0  God,  who  hast  promised  to  Thy  Son  the  heathen  for 
His  inheritance,  and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for 
His  possession,  hear  our  prayers  for  the  long  benighted  races 
of  Africa.     Make  wars  to  cease  among  them ;  give  the 


238  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

slaves  their  liberty,  and  bid  the  oppressed  go  free ;  send 
the  light  of  life  to  dispel  all  darkness  and  ignorance ;  and 
grant  that  Thy  Church,  now  spreading  over  those  wide 
lands,  may  lengthen  her  cords  and  strengthen  her  stakes, 
and  be,  of  Thy  mercy,  the  peaceful  home  where  all  may 
be  one  in  Thee.  Grant  this  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake. 
Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Oceania  : — 

May  it  please  Thee,  good  Lord,  to  prosper  the  work  of 
Thy  Church  in  the  far-off  isles  of  the  sea ;  that  a  new 
song  may  be  sung  unto  Thee  and  Thy  praise  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.    Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  the  Conversion  of  Israel  : — 

0  merciful  God,  long-suffering  and  gracious,  have  pity 
upon  Thine  ancient  people  Israel.  Take  away  the  veil 
from  off  their  hearts.  Eemove  from  them  all  ignorance 
and  hardness  of  heart  and  unbelief,  that  they  may  look 
on  Him  whom  they  have  pierced,  and  mourn.  Enable 
them,  0  heavenly  Father,  to  receive  as  their  King .  Him 
whom  Thou  hast  exalted  to  be  a  Prince  and  Saviour  for 
them.  Grant  this,  0  Lord,  for  the  sake  of  the  same  Thy 
Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Inquirers  sincerely  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  faith  : — 

0  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  pray  for  those  among  the 
heathen  who  know  Thy  Name,  but  fear  to  confess  Thee 
before  men.  We  beseech  Thee  to  carry  on  the  work 
Thou  hast  begun  in  them,  that  they  may  be  obedient  to 
the  faith.  Lord,  they  believe,  help  Thou  their  unbelief. 
Be  pleased  in  mercy  to  reveal  Thyself  to  them  so  that 
they  may  be  ready  to  give  up  all  for  Thy  sake,  and  re- 
joice if  they  are  counted  worthy  to  suffer  shame  for  Thy 
Name.  May  the  Holy  Spirit  descend  on  all  missionary 
schools  and  colleges,  and  baptize  the  many  thousands 
of  young  souls  who  are  daily  instructed  from  Thy  holy 
Word.     May  they  walk  while  they  have  the  light,  lest 


INTERCESSION  239 

darkness  come  upon  them.  May  tliey  yield  themselves 
up  to  Thy  command,  and  enter  into  the  full  light  and 
liberty  and  peace  of  Thy  kingdom,  who  art,  with  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  one  God  over  all,  blessed  for 
ever.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Catechumens  : — 

0  Lord  God,  remember  the  Catechumens  who  in  various 
lands  are  under  instruction  preparatory  to  their  baptism  : 
have  mercy  upon  them;  strengthen  their  faith;  purify 
their  hearts ;  and  plant  therein  Thy  fear.  Thy  truths,  and 
Thy  commandments :  prej^are  them  to  be  a  habitation  of 
the  Holy  Ghost;  and  grant  that  they  may  receive  the 
washing  of  regeneration  for  the  remission  of  their  sins  to 
the  glory  of  Thy  name ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  the  spiritual  progress  of  Disciples  : — 
We  yield  Thee  humble  thanks,  0  heavenly  Father,  for 
all  whom  Thou  hast  called  from  among  the  dark  peoples 
to  the  knowledge  of  Thy  grace  and  faith  in  Thee.  Grant 
that  they  may  daily  increase  in  Thy  Holy  Spirit  more 
and  more ;  and  that,  using  all  diligence  to  be  rightly 
instructed  in  Thy  holy  Word,  they  may  grow  in  the 
knowledge  and  love  of,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  may 
live  godly,  righteously,  and  soberly  in  this  present  world, 
until  in  the  end  they  obtain  everlasting  life,  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Am^n. 

Let  us  pray  for  Students  preparing  for  missionary 
work : — 

Almighty  and  eternal  God,  we  humbly  pray  Thee,  let 
Thy  special  blessing  abide  on  all  colleges  where  Thy 
servants  are  preparing  as  students  for  the  ministry  of  Thy 
Word  in  foreign  parts.  Eaise  up,  we  beseech  Thee,  a  due 
supply  of  men  and  women,  moved  inwardly  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  truly  called,  according  to  the  will  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Take  from  them  all  pride  and  self-conceit, 
and  every  unworthy  motive.     Enlighten  their  minds,  sub- 


240  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

jugate  their  wills,  purify  their  hearts,  and  so  fill  them 
with  Thy  Spirit  that  they  may  go  forth  animated  with 
zeal  for  Thy  glory  and  love  for  the  souls  of  men ;  and 
may  Thy  Holy  Word  so  burn  within  their  hearts  that 
they  may  speak  and  heal  with  that  resistless  energy  of 
love  which  will  melt  the  hearts  of  sinners.  And  grant  to 
their  teachers,  that,  being  patterns  of  holiness,  simplicity, 
and  self-denial,  they  may  wisely  and  patiently  train  up 
the  ministers  and  missionaries  of  Thy  Holy  Church.  Hear 
us,  0  Lord,  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour. 
Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  THE  Church  in  the  United  States 
OF  America  : — 

0  Almighty  God,  who  from  Thy  throne  dost  behold 
all  the  dwellers  upon  earth,  we  thank  Thee  for  that  Thou 
hast  given  to  the  sections  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  sister  Churches  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  Let  the  dew  of  Thy  blessing  descend  evermore 
on  them,  and  make  them  rich  in  every  fruit  of  the  Spirit. 
Grant  that  between  their  members  and  ourselves  the  com- 
munion of  saints  may  be  maintained  to  Thy  glory,  and  to 
the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ  in  love,  May  the 
hearts  of  the  fathers  be  so  turned  to  the  children,  and  the 
hearts  of  the  children  to  their  fathers,  that  peace  and  love 
may  be  multiplied  among  nations,  and  that  the  world  may 
receive  thereby  a  blessing  from  on  high,  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  Missionaries  : — 

0  most  merciful  Saviour  and  Eedeemer,  who  wouldest 
not  that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all  men  should  be 
saved  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  fulfil  Thy 
gracious  promise  to  be  present  with  those  who  are  gone 
forth  in  Thy  name  to  preach  the  gospel  of  salvation  to 
distant  peoples.  Be  with  them  in  all  perils  by  land  or  by 
water,  in  sickness  and  distress,  in  weariness  and  painful- 
ness,  in  disappointment  and  persecution.  Bless  them,  we 
beseech  Thee,  with  Thy  continual  favour ;  and  send  Thy 


INTERCESSION  241 

Holy  Spirit  to  guide  them  into  all  truth.  0  Lord,  let 
Thy  ministers  be  clothed  with  righteousness,  and  grant 
that  Thy  word  spoken  by  their  mouths  may  never  be 
spoken  in  vain.  Endue  them  with  power  from  on  high ; 
and  so  prosper  Thy  work  in  their  hands,  that  the  fulness 
of  the  Gentiles  may  be  gathered  in,  and  all  Israel  be 
saved.  Hear  us,  0  Lord,  for  Thy  mercy's  sake,  who 
livest  and  reignest  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
ever  one  God,  world  without  end.     Amen. 

Let  us  pray  for  the  quickening  op  Zeal  in  Chris- 
tians : — 

0  Lord,  our  Saviour,  who  hast  warned  us  that  Thou 
wilt  require  much  of  those  to  whom  much  is  given ;  grant 
that  we,  whose  lot  is  cast  in  so  goodly  a  heritage,  may 
strive  together  the  more  abundantly,  by  prayer,  by  alms- 
giving, and  by  every  other  appointed  means,  to  extend 
to  others  what  we  so  richly  enjoy  ;  and  as  we  have  entered 
into  the  labours  of  other  men,  may  we  so  labour  that,  in 
their  turn,  other  men  may  enter  into  ours,  to  the  fulfilment 
of  Thy  Holy  Will  and  our  own  everlasting  salvation. 
ATnen, 

Prayer  to  be  used  by  Missionary  Committees  and 
Secretaries  : — 

Almighty  God,  our  heavenly  Father,  who  hast  purchased 
to  Thyself  an  Universal  Church  by  the  precious  blood  of 
Thy  dear  Son,  we  give  Thee  hearty  thanks  that  it  hath 
pleased  Thee  to  call  us  to  the  knowledge  of  Thy  grace  and 
faith  in  Thee,  and  to  appoint  our  lot  in  an  age  and 
country  where  the  true  light  shineth.  We  bless  Thee 
that  Thou  hast  awakened  us  in  some  measure  to  feel  our 
responsibilities.  We  praise  Thee  for  what  we  have  seen 
and  heard  of  the  power  of  Thy  word  among  the  heathen ; 
we  adore  Thee  for  Thy  many  servants  who  have  gone  out 
from  amongst  us  to  toil,  and  sufi'er,  and  die  in  making 
known  Thy  salvation  ;  and  we  thank  Thee  that  Thou  dost 
allow  us,  unworthy  sinners,  to  unite  together  in  this  work 
of  faith  and  labour  of  love. 


242  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

We  humbly  confess  our  past  lukewarmness  in  this  Thy 
service,  notwithstanding  these  Thine  inestimable  benefits 
and  mercies.  For  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  sake  forgive 
us  our  past  negligences,  and  so  endue  us  with  Thy  Holy 
Spirit  that  we  may  more  earnestly  seek  Thy  glory  in  the 
salvation  of  souls. 

Grant  us,  we  beseech  Thee,  Thy  very  present  help  at 
our  meetings.  We  ask,  most  gracious  God  and  Father, 
for  a  constraining  sense  of  the  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and 
for  wisdom  to  direct  us  in  all  our  endeavours.  Increase 
upon  us  the  spirit  of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound 
mind.  Give  us  faith  and  courage ;  give  us  zeal  and 
patience ;  give  us  a  single  eye  to  Th}^  glory,  and  help  us 
to  bear  and  to  forbear.  The  silver  and  the  gold  are  Thine, 
0  King  of  kings  !  Supply  us  with  Avhat  is  needful  for 
our  great  work,  and  make  us  faithful  stewards  of  Thy 
bounty  for  proclaiming  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ. 

We  pray  also  for  all  who  are  united  with  us  in  the 
direction  of  this  sacred  cause.  May  Thine  especial  blessing 
rest  upon  Missionary  Committees,  with  their  Secretaries, 
throughout  the  world.  Bestow  on  them  the  help  that  we 
feel  so  needful  for  ourselves.  Enal)le  them  to  maintain 
the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and  ever  to 
find  favour  in  the  sight  of  all  with  whom  they  may  have 
to  do. 

Especially  we  beseech  Thee  to  look,  0  most  merciful 
Father,  upon  our  Missionary  brethren.  Draw  out  our 
hearts  towards  them  more  and  more ;  and  while  they  are 
bearing  the  burden  abroad,  give  us  grace  to  help  and 
succour  them  by  our  sympathy  and  prayers  at  home. 
Bless  every  letter  written  to  them  from  this  place,  and  all 
our  intercourse  with  them.  We  pray  for  them  that  they 
may  be  filled  with  Thy  Spirit.  Grant  that  the  same  mind 
may  be  in  them  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus.  Let  them 
never  lose  their  first  love.  Raise  them  above  the  cares  of 
this  world.  Help  them  to  deny  themselves  and  to  endure 
all  things  for  the  elect's  sake.  Give  them  the  tongue  of 
the  learned.  Clothe  them  with  humility.  Teach  them  to 
follow  peace  with  each  other,  and  with  all  men.     Support 


THANKSGIVING  243 

them  under  spiritual  distresses,  temptations  of  the  adver- 
sary, bodily  sickness,  domestic  anxieties,  and  hope  deferred. 
And  so  confirm  Thy  word  from  their  lips  by  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  that  through  them  multitudes  may  be 
turned  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the  power  of 
Satan  unto  Thee,  our  God. 

We  praise  Thee,  0  Thou  God  of  all  grace,  for  the  Con- 
verts, the  Native  Catechists,  and  the  Native  Ministers, 
whom  Thou  hast  granted  to  us  in  our  several  missions. 
As  Thou  hast  raised  the  Native  Churches  thus  far,  bring 
them,  we  pray  Thee,  to  full  ripeness  and  perfectness  of 
age  in  Christ.  Pour  out  upon  them  Thy  Holy  Spirit. 
Stablish,  strengthen,  settle  them,  and  so  enlarge  their 
liberality,  that  they  may  both  maintain  Thy  Word  among 
themselves,  and  may  make  it  known  to  the  regions  beyond 
them,  till  all  the  peoples  hear  the  glad  tidings  of  Thy 
love  and  praise  Thee. 

Give  us  a  constant  sense  of  Thy  presence ;  and  may  all 
our  undertakings  be  begun,  continued,  and  ended  in  Thee, 
to  the  honour  of  Thy  great  name,  for  the  sake  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.     Amen. 


n.  THANKSGIVING. 

Let  us  give  thanks  for  the  Progress  of  the  Gospel: — 

Thou  art  worthy,  0  Lord,  to  receive  power 

And  riches  and  wisdom  and  strength, 

And  honour  and  glory  and  blessing : 

Blessed  be  Thy  glorious  Name, 

That  Thy  word  hath  sounded  forth, 

Not  only  in  Jerusalem,  and  Antioch, 

In  Athens  and  in  Eome, 

In  London  and  in  New  York ; 

But  in  every  place  the  faith  of  Christ 

Is  spread  abroad. 

All  glory  he  to  Thee. 


244  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

For  Thy  good  soldiers  in  every  age, 

Striving  lawfully,  enduring  unto  the  endj 

For  the  wisdom  of  doctors, 

The  zeal  of  evangelists, 

The  eloquence  of  prophets, 
The  love  of  pastors. 
For  the  praises  of  babes,  the  ministry  of  women, 
The  purity  of  the  young,  the  fervour  of  the  aged. 

For  all  the  signs  of  Thy  presence, 
All  the  marks  of  Thy  Cross : 

All  glory  be  to  Thee, 

For  the  light  of  Thy  everlasting  gospel, 

Sent  to  every  nation,  and  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  people, 

Shining  so  long  amongst  ourselves ; 
For  Thy  Church,  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth, 
Against  which  the  gates  of  hell  have  not  prevailed; 

For  Thy  gracious  word  of  promise, 

That  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine 

As  the  brightness  of  the  firmament. 
And  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness 
As  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever : 

All  glm-y  be  to  Thee, 

The  Lord  is  gracious  and  merciful, 
Long-suffering,  and  of  great  goodness. 
The  Lord  is  loving  unto  every  man. 
And  His  mercy  is  over  all  His  works. 
All  Thy  works  praise  Thee,  0  Lord, 
And  Thy  Saints  give  thanks  unto  Thee. 
They  show  the  glory  of  Thy  kingdom, 
And  talk  of  Thy  power. 
That  Thy  power.  Thy  glory,  and  mightiness 
of  Thy  kingdom, 
Might  be  known  unto  men ; 
Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom, 
And  Thy  dominion  endureth  throughout  all  ages. 
AU  glory  be  to  Thee, 


THANKSGIVING  245 

Great  and  marvellous  are  Thy  works, 
Lord  God  Almighty ; 
Just  and  true  are  Thy  ways, 
Thou  King  of  Saints. 
Who  shall  not  fear  Thee,  0  Lord,  and  glorify 
Thy  Name  ? 
For  Thou  only  art  holy ; 
For  all  nations  shall  come  and  worship  before  Thee ; 
For  Thy  judgments  are  made  manifest. 

All  glory  be  to  Thee, 

After  this  I  beheld,  and,  lo,  a  great  multitude. 
Which  no  man  could  number, 
Of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  people,  and  tongues. 
Stood  before  the  throne,  and  before  the  Lamb, 
Clothed  with  white  robes. 
And  palms  in  their  hands ; 
And  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  saying, 
Salvation  to  our  God,  which  sitteth  upon  the  throne, 
And  unto  the  Lamb. 
Hallelujah ! 
For  the  Lord  God  Omnipotent  reigneth. 

Glory  he  to  the  Father,  atid  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy 
Ghost ; 

As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  he,  world 
mthout  end.     Amen,  Amm. 


APPENDIX 

THE   FINDING   OF   THE    NESTORIAN   TABLET 

The  work  of  the  Jesuit  missionary,  Alvarez  Semedo,  referred 
to  on  page  19,  was  translated  into  English  and  published  in 
London  in  1655.1  It  is  now  so  rare  that  we  append  that  part 
of  chapter  31,  "Of  the  Christian  Religion  planted  many  Ages 
since  in  China  :  and  of  a  very  ancient  Stone  lately  discovered 
there,  which  is  an  admirable  Testimonie  thereof,"  which  de- 
scribes the  finding  : — 

"When  the  Tartars  conquered  China  there  were  many 
Christians  who  had  sumptuous  Churches,  being  much  favoured 
by  them,  as  appeareth  by  the  relation  of  Faulus  Venetus.  After- 
ward when  Humvu  endeavoured  to  regaine  the  Kingdom,  and 
made  warre  upon  the  Tartars,  the  Moores  tooke  part  with  the 
Chinesses,  and  lent  them  their  assistance  for  the  gaining  of  the 
Kingdom,  and  of  the  victory  which  they  obtained,  in  acknow- 
ledgement whereof  they  were  allowed  to  remaine  in  CTiina,  with 
libertie  of  their  Religion  and  of  their  Mosches.     The  Christians 

1  "The  History  of  that  great  and  renowned  Monarchy  of  China. 
Wherein  aU  the  particular  Provinces  are  accurately  described  :  as  also  the 
Dispositions,  Manners,  Learning,  Lawes,  Militia,  Government,  and 
Religion  of  the  People.  Together  with  the  Traffiek  and  Commodities  of 
that  Countrey.  Lately  written  in  ItaMan  by  F.  Alvarez  Semedo,  a 
Portughess,  after  he  had  resided  twenty  two  yeares  at  the  Court,  and  other 
Famous  Cities  of  that  Kingdom.  Now  put  into  Enilish  by  a  Person  of 
quality,  and  iUustrated  with  several  Maj.ps  and  Figures,  to  satisfie  the 
curious,  and  advance  the  trade  of  Great  Brittain.  To  which  is  added  the 
History  of  the  late  Invasion  and  Conquest  of  that  flourishing  Kingdom  by 
the  Tartars.  With  an  exact  Account  of  the  other  affairs  of  China,  till 
these  present  times.  London  :  Printed  by  E.  Tyler  for  lohn  Crook,  and 
are  to  be  sold  at  his  Shop  at  the  Sign  of  the  Ship  in  S.  Pauls  Church- 
yard, 1655." 


248  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

inclined  to  the  Tartars^  and  they  being  overcome  in  that  warre, 
the  Christians  also  were  deprived  of  their  Estates,  and  some 
being  slain,  others  changing  their  Religion,  others  flying  and 
hiding  themselves  in  secret  places,  in  a  short  time,  all  signe  and 
memory  of  our  Religion  perished,  so  that  it  was  not  possible  for 
us  to  discover  anything,  with  all  the  diligence  we  used  to  that 
purpose. 

"  To  conclude,  we  remained  very  disconsolate  in  the  midst  of 
so  great  darknesse,  when  it  pleased  The  only  fountaine  of  light 
to  draw  us  out  of  this  ohscuritie  with  a  most  clear  Testimony,  that 
the  Gospel  had  flourished  there  many  ages  since  :  The  thing  fell  out 
thus. 

"In  the  year  1625,  as  they  were  digging  the  foundation  for 
to  erect  a  certain  building  neere  to  the  City  of  Siganfu,  the 
Capitall  Citie  of  the  Province  of  Xerasi,  the  workemen  lighted 
upon  a  table  of  stone  about  nine  palmes  long,  and  more  than 
foure  in  breadth,  and  above  one  palme  in  thicknesse.  The  top 
of  it,  (that  is,  one  of  the  extremities,  or  ends,  of  the  length 
thereof,)  endeth  in  the  forme  of  a  Pyramid,  above  two  palmes 
in  height,  and  above  one  palmes  breadth  at  the  Basis.  On  the 
plaine  of  this  Pyramid,  there  is  a  well  form'd  Crosse,  the 
extremities  whereof  end  in  flower-deluces,  after  the  fashion  of 
that  Crosse,  which  is  reported  to  have  been  found  graved  on  the 
Sepulchre  of  the  Apostle  S.  Thomas  in  the  Towne  of  MeUaiJor, 
and  as  they  were  anciently  painted  in  Europe,  of  which  there 
are  some  yet  to  be  seen  at  this  day. 

*'  This  Crosse  is  encompassed,  as  it  were,  with  certain  clouda, 
and  at  the  foot  thereof  were  three  Traverse  lines,  each  consisting 
of  three  great  letters,  being  all  such  as  are  commonly  used  in 
China,  very  fairly  graven  :  with  the  same  sort  of  letters  is 
engraven  the  whole  Superficies  of  the  stone,  as  also  the  thicknesse 
thereof,  the  which  notwithstanding  diflfereth  from  the  rest,  in 
that  some  of  the  letters  graven  thereon,  are  forraine,  neither 
were  they  knowne  here  at  the  first  finding  of  it. 

"Scarcely  had  the  Chinesses  discovered  and  cleansed  this 
notable  piece  of  Antiquitie,  when  excited  by  the  fervour  of  their 
naturall  curiosity,  they  ranne  to  the  Governour  to  give  him 
notice  of  it,  who  being  much  joyed  at  this  newes,  presently 
came  to  see  it,  and  caused  it  to  be  placed  upon  a  faire  Pedestall, 
under  a  small  Arch,  sustained  by  pillars  at  each  end  thereof, 
and  open  at  the  sides,  that  it  might  be  both  defended  from  the 


APPENDIX  249 

injuries  of  the  weather,  and  also  feast  the  eyes  of  such  as  are 
true  Lovers  of  veneral^le  Antiquity.  He  caused  it  also  to  be  set 
within  the  circuit  of  a  Temple  belonging  to  the  Bonzi,  not  farre 
from  the  place  where  it  was  taken  up. 

"  There  was  a  wonderfull  concourse  of  people  to  see  this  stone, 
partly  for  the  Antiquity  thereof,  and  partly  for  the  novelty  of 
the  strange  Characters,  which  was  to  be  seen  thereon :  and  as 
the  knowledge  of  our  Religion  is  at  this  day  very  much  spread 
abroad  in  China,  a  Gentile,  who  was  a  great  friend  unto  a  grave 
Christian  Mandarine  named  Leo,  being  present  there,  presently 
understood  the  mystery  of  that  writing,  and  believing  it  would 
be  very  acceptable  to  his  friend,  sent  him  a  copy  thereof, 
although  he  was  distant  above  a  month  and  a  halfes  voyage,  the 
Mandarine  dwelling  in  the  City  of  Hamcheu,  whither  our 
fathers  had  retired  themselves,  by  reason  of  the  former  per- 
secution, whereof  we  shall  speak  in  its  proper  place.  This  copy 
was  received  with  a  spirituall  Jubilee,  and  many  exteriour 
demonstrations  of  joy,  as  an  irrefragable  Testimony  of  the 
Ancient  Christianity  in  China,  which  had  been  so  much  desired 
and  sought  after  :  for  no  lesse  was  contained  in  this  writing,  as 
we  shall  shew  anon. 

"Three  years  after  in  the  year  1628  some  of  our  fathers 
went  into  that  Province  in  the  company  of  a  Christian  Mandarine, 
who  had  occasion  to  go  thither.  They  founded  a  Church  and 
house  in  the  capitall  City  thereof  for  the  service  of  our  good 
God,  that  he,  who  was  pleased  to  discover  so  precious  a 
memoriall  of  the  possession  taken  in  that  Country  by  his  divine 
law,  would  also  facilitate  the  restitution  thereof  in  the  same 
place.  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  one  of  the  first,  and  1 
esteemed  it  a  happy  abode,  in  that  I  had  the  opportunity  to  see 
the  stone,  and  being  arrived  I  took  no  thought  for  any  thing 
else.  I  saw  it  and  read  it,  and  went  often  to  read,  behold,  and 
consider  it  at  leisure,  and  above  all,  I  did  much  admire,  that 
being  so  ancient,  it  should  be  so  entire,  and  have  the  letters  so 
plainly  and  neatly  graven. 

"  On  the  thicknes  of  the  sides  thereof,  it  hath  many  Chinesse 
letters,  which  containe  many  names  of  the  Priests  and  Bishops 
of  that  time.  There  are  also  many  other  letters,  which  were 
not  then  knowne,  for  they  are  neither  Hebrew  nor  Greek  :  and 
(for  as  much  as  I  now  understand)  they  containe  the  same 
names,  that  if  peradventure  some  strangers  might  not  under- 


260  THE  CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 

stand  the  letters  of  tlie  Countrie,  they  might  perhaps  be  better 
acquainted  with  those  of  a  forraigne  extraction. 

"Passing  by  Cocchine  I  came  to  Gravganor,  where  is  the 
Residence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Costa,  to  consult  about  these 
letters  with  father  Antoni  Fernandes  one  of  our  societie,  who  is 
very  skilfull  in  the  books  and  writings  of  those  ancient 
Christians  converted  by  S.  Thomas.  He  told  me  the  letters 
were  Syriack,  and  the  very  same  which  are  used  there  at  this 
day." 

Further  accounts  of  the  Nestorian  Tablet  will  be  found  in 
Nieuhoff's  narrative  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company's  embassy 
to  the  Emperor  of  China  in  1655,  Englished  by  John  Ogilby 
in  1673  (2nd  ed.),  and  in  Du  Halde's  DescrijAion  of  the  Empire 
of  China  and  Chinese  Tartary,  of  which  an  English  translation 
appeared  in  two  folios  in  1741. 


INDEX 


Abd-er-Ruzzak,  42 

Abdul  Masih,  225 

Abel-Remusat,  19 

Abgarus,  16 

Aboriginal  peoples  of  India,  218 

Abraham ic  centuries,  2 

Abulfazl,  70 

Adam  of  China,  23 

Aden,  14 

Adule,  28 

Afghan  wars,  144 

Africa's  conversion,  2 

Agra,  73 

Agriculture  in  India,  103 

Ain-i-Akbari,  70 

Aitchison,  Sir  C.  U.,  133,  157, 186 

Akbar,  70 

Albuquerque,  48 

Aldeeu,  98 

Alexander  the  Great,  10 

Alexandria,  10 

Allahabad,  139 

Almeida,  48 

Alopan,  21 

Amboyna,  77 

American  Oriental  Society,  19 

independence,  84 

missions,  126,  132,  134   143, 

145,  150,  152,  158,  160 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  46 
Anastasius  of  Sinai,  14 
Anderson,  John,  109 
Andrewes,  Bishop,  235 
Animists  in  India,  201 
Antioch,  10 
Arcot,  165 
Arghun  Khan,  36 
Arian  heresy,  5,  32 


Armenia,  34 

Arnobius,  17 

Arnold,  Sir  E.,  207 

Aryan  familjs  3,  116,  143 

Arya  Somaj,  220 

Asia,  population  and  area,  196, 199 

Aungier,  90 

Ava,  152 

Badlet,  Dr.,  158 

Bahadoor  Shah,  137 

Bahar,  211 

Baines,  J,  A.,  208 

Baldseus,  78 

Balkh,  23 

Banerji,  K.  C,  221 

Bannerjea,  K.  M.,  136 

Bartholomew,  14 

Barygaza,  8 

Barzoi,  25 

Basel  Missionary  Society,  132 

Bateman,  Rev.  R.,  219,  232 

Beliarte,  49 

Benares,  228 

Bengal,  159,  211 

Bentinck,  Lord  W.,  135,  231 

Berenice,  14 

Bernard,  Sir  C,  157,  191 

Beruier,  89 

Beschi,  69 

Best  38 

Bettia,  73 

Bidpai,  25 

Bible  translation,  133,  180 

Birdwood,  Sir  George,  83,  88 

Blochraann,  71 

Bojador,  Cape,  43 

Bombay,  143 


252 


THE   CONVERSION  OF  INDIA 


Bombay  Conference,  212,  227 

Boniface,  5 

Borgia,  Alexander,  48 

Boston,  155 

BougMon,  Dr.,  96 

Brahmanism,  6,  22,  134,  167,  219, 

22a 
Brahma  Somaj,  219 
Brainerd,  David,  149 

John,  149 

Bridgman,  Dr.,  19 

Britto,  68 

Broach,  8,  39 

Brown,  David,  97 

Bruce,  Dr.,  232 

Bryce's  American  Commonwealth, 

146 
Buchanan,  Claudius,  9,  94,  107 
Buddhism,  5,  22,  76,  153,  207,211 
Buddhists  iu  India,  201 
Burgess,  Dr.,  24 
Burma,  134,  157 
Burmese  wars,  144 
Burnell,  Dr.,  24 

Cabral,  49 

Calcutta,  92 

Caldwell,  Bishop,  136,  217 

Calicut,  48 

Calvin,  53,  128 

Cambaluc,  34 

Cambridge  University,  111 

Campbell,  Colin,  142 

Canada  Presbyterian  Church,  144 

Cannanor,  9 

Canning,  Lord,  114 

Carey,  William,  43,  95,  128,  134, 

150,  198 
Caste  in  missions,  131 
Casteless  tribes,  218 
Castell,  W.,  148 
Castlereagh,  Lord,  108 
Cathay,  34 
Cawnpore,  138 
Ceylon,  9,  37,  76,  132,  207 
Chalmers,  Tlioraas,  129 
Chambers,  William,  96 
Chaplains,  203 

in  India,  92 

Charters,  East  India,  84,  106,  203 
Cheek,  Ensign,  139 
Chera,  10 


Child,  Su-  John,  90 
China,  62,  250 
Chinese  rites,  67 
Chinghiz  Khan,  83 
Chinsurah,  78 
Chola,  10 
Chooras,  218,  233 
Chota  Nagpore,  218 
Christian  centuries,  2 

Literature  Society,  143 

Christians  in  the  world,  197 

in  India,  201 

Christendom's  message  to  the  East, 

116 
Church,  Dean,  216 
Church   Missionary   Society,    131, 

161 
Churches  working  in  India,  161 
Cities  of  India,  209 
Clapham  sect,  98 
Clark,  Dr.  H.  M.,  223 
Clark,  R,  186 
Clement,  12 
Clive,  Lord,  94,  101 
Cochin,  9,  49,  250 
Code,  Theodosian,  110 

Penal,  of  India,  122 

Coimbator,  10 

Coimbra,  54 

Coke,  Dr.,  132 

Coleridge,  H.  J.,  52 

Colonisation  and  missions,  3,  8 

Columba,  5 

Columbus,  Christopher,  6,  9,   11 

43,  168 
Colvin,  Sir  A.,  158 
Comorin,  Cape,  144 
Comparative  Grammar,  4 
Connecticut,  146 
Conti,  42 
Cop,  58 
Coptos,  14 

Cornwallis,  Marquis  of,  98 
Corrie,  Bishop,  98 
Cosmas  Indicopleustes,  27 
Cotton,  Bishop,  63,  118,  235 
Cranganor,  8,  19,  49 
Cromwell,  90,  148 
Crusades,  33 
Cust,  R.  N.,  110,  117 

Dalhousib,  Marquis  of,  125,  204 


INDEX 


253 


Daniel's  vision,  6 

Darien  expedition,  148 

Day,  Francis,  78 

Day,  L.  B.,  181 

Dayanand  Saraswati,  220 

Decennial  Conference,  212 

Delaware,  146 

Demonolatry,  5 

Denmark,  95,  127,  130 

Derby,  Earls  of,  113 

Diamper  Synod,  66 

Didaskaleion,  13 

Dion  Chrysostom,  13 

Divorce  Act  fornative  Christians,  125 

Dominic,  33 

Downes,  Dr.,  144 

Dravidians,  5 

Du  Halde,  250 

Dubois,  Abbe,  64,  74 

Duff  College,  136 

Dr.  A.,  109,  129,  152,  231 

Dufferin,  Marquis,  204 
Dundas,  H.,  99,  129 
Durand,  Sir  Henry,  152 
Dutch  Republic,  49,  76 

East  India  Company,  77,  146 

West  India  Company,  145 

missions,  78,  146,  207 

East  India  Company,  83,  88,  99, 
110 

Eclipse  in  India,  103 

Edessa,  16 

Education  in  India,  108,  117,  121 

in  missions,   131,    136,   163, 

183,  193 
Edwardes,  Sir  H.,  110,  118 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  149 
Eliot,  John,  47,  147 
Elliot,  Sir  C,  159,  211 
Elphinstone,  M.,  109 

Lord,  109 

Empress  of  India,  113 

English  language  in  India,  101,  109 

Epigraphic  evidence,  18 

Epiphanius  of  Salamis,  37 

Ernakolam,  49 

Establishment,   ecclesiastical,  106, 

109 
Estrangelo  characters,  18 
Ethiopia,  11 
Eusebius,  12,  16 


Eutychian  doctrine,  30 

Faber,  F.  W.,  52 
Famine,  Bengal,  100 
Faria  e  Sousa,  65 
Fartask,  Cape,  9 
Fayum,  12 
Formosa,  77 

Forsyth,  missionary,  127 
Fort  William  College,  107 
Francis  of  Assisi,  33 

Xavier,  see  Xavier 

Sir  Philip,  94 

Eraser,  A.  H.  L.,  190 
Free  Church  of  Scotland,  189 
Frere,  Sir  Bartle,  109,  157 
FrieTid  of  India  Tie\<rii[)apeT,  115 
Friends,  Society  of,  143 

Gades,  30 

Genoa,  48 

Geography  and  missions,  42,  194 

George  I.,  127 

German  missions,  130,  163 

Ghazipore,  112 

Gibbon,  27,  30 

Glenelg,  Lord,  99,  111 

Goa.  51,  63 

Gogerly,  207 

Golconda,  37 

Goluk  Nath,  151 

Goj)inath  Nundy,  151 

Gordon,  G.  MaxweU,  144 

Gordon-Cumming,  Miss  C.  F.,  207 

Gouvea,  65 

Grant,  Charles,  96 

Sir  Robert,  99,  157 

Greek  attempt  in  India,  8 

philosophy,  12 

Grotius,  76 
Guanahani,  43 
Gundert,  132 
Guntoor,  158 
Gwaiior,  73 

Haidarabad,  210 
Haldanes,  The,  128 
Hall,  missionary,  155,  157 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  93 

Dr.,  96 

Hardy,  Spence,  267 
Harris,  Lord,  167 


254 


THE   CONVERSION   OF   INDIA 


Harvard  University,  147 
Hastings,  Warren,  94,  107 
Havelock,  General,  142 
Hawkins,  88 
Hayti,  45 
Hayton,  34 
Heber,  Bishop,  225 
Hebich,  132 
Henderson,  A.,  148 
Henry  the  Navigator,  43 
Herbert,  Sir  T. ,  89 
Hinduism,  the  new,  221 
Hindus,  101,  201,  219 
Hippalus,  9 
Hislop,  121 
Hodges,  Bishop,  26 
Hope,  Sir  T.  C. ,  201 
Horton,  A.,  149 
Hough,  J.,  75,  131 
Human  race,  197 
Hwen  Tsang,  22 

Ibn  Wahab,  18 

Batuta,  42 

Imad-ud-Din,  Dr.,  181,  222 
India,  11,  116,  195,  199,  209 
India's  conversion,  2,  6,  116,  234 
Indo-European  family,  3 
Inglis,  John,  110 

Kev.  Dr.,  129 

Inquisition,  50,  64 
Inscriptions,  21 
Intercession,  forms  of,  236 

daily,  235 

Interlopers,  88 

Intolerance,  true,  215 

Inverness,  98 

Iran,  4 

Irish  Presbyterian  Church,  143 

Isaiah,  143 

Islam,  the  new,  221 

Jacobite  creed,  67 

Jahangir,  88 

Jains,  201 

Japan,  11,  65 

Java,  77 

Jerome,  12 

Jerusalem,  9 

Jesuit  missionaries,  19,  52,  54,  68, 

193 
Jews,  8,  201 


Jeynarain's  college,  98 
Johannes  of  Persia,  15 
John  of  Piano  Carpini,  34 

of  Monte  Corvino,  38 

Hector  de  Britto,  68 

Jordanus,  38 

Joseph  the  Indian,  49 

Judson,  A.,  Ill,  129, 151, 174,  204 

his  wives,  152 

Kafristan,  144 
Kcdilah  and  DimnaJi,  26 
Kalvan,  9,  157 
Karens,  118,  157 
Kathiawar,  143 
Keeling,  88 

Keith-Falconer,  Ion,  26 
Kerala,  10 
Kerridge,  89 
Kiernander,  97 
King-tsing,  ,21 
Kircher,  19 
Klaproth,  19 
Koordistan,  30 
Koran,  222 
Kottayam,  18,  25 
Krishna  Pal,  136 

Mohun  Bannerjea,  136 

Kublai  Khan,  35 

Lake,  General,  110 

Lancaster,  88 

La  Croze,  65 

La  Eabida,  44 

Las  Casas,  44 

Lawrence,  Henry,  153,  158 

John,    1st   Lord,    110,    118, 

176 
Lescke,  89 
Leyden  University,  77 

city,  147 

Lignitz,  33 

Lindsay,  Dr.  T.  M.,  189 

Literature   for    native    Christians, 

179 
Livingstone,  David,  3,  86 
London   Missionary   Society,   131, 

150 
Lord,  Henry,  89 
Lo^vrie,  J.  C.,  150 
Loyola,  53 
Luckuow,  158 


INDEX 


255 


Lull,  Kaymund,  33 

Luther,  5,  47 

LyaU,  Sir  A.,  87,  169 

Macaulat,  105,  122,  231 
Mackay,  Dr.  W.  S.,  69 
Mackichan,  Dr.,  188 
Mackinnon,  Sir  W.,  86 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  109 
M'Leod,  SirD.,  119 
Macleod,  Sir  J.  M.,  122 

Dr.  Norman,  185,  232 

Madras,  229 

Nestorian  inscriptions,  18 

Christian  College,  30,  230 

Madura,  10,  131 

Maine,  Sir  Henry  S.,  85,  123 

Malabar  coast,. 9 

rites,  67 

Malaysia,  11 
Malcolm,  Sir  John,  108 
Mandalay,  144 
Mandelslo,  70 
Mangalor,  9 
Manhattan  Island,  145 
Mani,  24 
Manichaeans,  24 
Mansilla,  59 
Marathas,  157 
Marchena,  44 
Marsh,  C,  108 
Marshman,  Joshua,  95,  134 

Hannah,  96 

John  Clark,  107,  121 

Martyn,  Henry,  64,  98,  129,  225 
Martyrs  of  Thana,  41 

evangelical  Christian,  138 

Masih,  Abdul,  225 

Masters,  Streynsham,  90 

Max  Miiller,  170 

Medical  missions,   96,    163,    179, 

205 
Megapolensis,  J.,  146 
Menchacha,  52 
Menezes,  49,  65 
Merv,  15 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  143, 

158 
Methods,  missionary,  133,  172 
Michaelius,  J.,  146 
Middleton,  88 
Bishop,  186 


Miesrob,  16 

Mill,  J.  S.,  87 

Miller,  Dr.  W.,  188,  230 

Mills,  S.  J.,  151 

Missionaries,  Nestorian,  17 

Roman,  57,  72 

Reformed,  206 

their  call,  172 

the  most  famous  in  India,  175 

prayer  for,  240 

Missionary  methods,   80,  96,  133, 

166,  172,  206,  212,  219,  233 

prospects,  135,  215 

societies     and     churches     in 

India,  161 

geography,  194,  210 

statistics,  198,  200,  209,  217, 

218 

appeals,  211,  212 

committees    and   secretaries, 

241 
Mitchell,  Donald,  130 
Moegling,  132 
Mohammedan  statistics,  221 

controversy,  227 

Mohammedanism,  1,  17,  120,  138, 

201,  205 
Mongols,  33 

Monier- Williams,  Sir  M.,  215 
Monophysite  doctrine,  15 
Monroe,  President,  150 
Monsoon  winds,  9 
Montgomery,  Sir  R.,  110 
Moravian  missions,  143,  163 
More,  Hannah,  105 
Moses  Chorenensis,  16 
Moulavi,  Lyakut  Ali,  138 
Moung  Nan,  157 
Mozoomdar,  220 
Muir,  John,  109,  215 

Sir  William,  109,  185 

Mullens,  Dr.,  137,  203 
Munro,  Sir  Thomas,  108 
Murdoch,  Dr.,  179 
Mushin-ul-Mulk,  Nawab,  222 
Mutazala  sect,  222 
Mutiny  in  India,  39,  117,  138 
Muziris,  9 

Nana  Dhoondopant,  137 
Nan,  Moung,  157 
Naoroji,  D.,  137 


256 


THE   CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 


Napier  and  Ettrick,  Lord,  165 
Narowal,  232 
National  congress,  232 
Native  Christians,  229 
Navalkar,  G.,  181 
Navarre,  53 
Nazaraui,  10,  39 
Neander,  13,  19 
Negi-oes,  127 
Nelkynda,  9 
Nepal,  71,  210 
Nepean,  Sir  E.,  157 
Nesbit,  Robert,  130 
Nestorian  doctrine,  15,  67 

tablet,  18,  247 

missionaries,  17,  68,  157 

martyrs,  27,  157 

Nestorius,  15 

Newell,  152 

New  England  Corporation,  148 

New  Netherlands,  146 

Newman,  H.  S.,  230 

Newton,  John,  96,  107 

John,  Punjab,  150 

Nicene  Council,  15 
Nicolas  of  Vicenza,  36 
Nicolson,  General,  142 
Nieuhoff,  250 
Nikitin,  42 
Nisibis,  16 
Northern  nations,  1 
Nott,  152,  157 
Nundy,  Gopinath,  136 

OccOM,  S.,  149 
Odoricus,  38,  41 
Ogilby,  John,  250 
Olcott,  207 
Origen,  12 
Oudh,  143 

Outram,  General,  142 
Owen,  John,  148 
Oxenden,  90 

Padmanji,  B.,  181 
Pah-gan,  154 
Pahlavi,  24 
Palakollu,  78 
Palmerston,  Lord,  233 
Pandya,  10 
Pantsenus,  11 
Pantheism,  216 


Pariahs,  218 

Parker,  Dr.  E.  W.,  188 

Parsees,  16,  137 
Patriarchates,  10 
Patrick,  5 
Pax  Evangelica,  86 
Peacock,  Sir  Barnes,  123 
Pegu,  156 
Peking,  34 
Persian  crosses,  24 
Phayre,  Sir  A.,  157 
Philadelphia,  159 
Philostorgius,  15 
Photius,  8 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  147 
Pitt,  William,  105,  129 
Pittsburg  Sjmod,  150 
Plutschau,  95 
Plymouth  Rock,  145 
Polo,  Marco,  11,  36 

Nicolas  Maffeo,  35 

Population  of  World,  196 

of  India,  209 

Portugal,  48,  73,  207 
Prayer,  149,  174,  177,  236 
Preaching  to  Hindus,  178 
Pressense,  13 
Prester  John,  34 
Prince  Consort,  113,  142 
Proclamation,  Queen's  India,  113 
Provinces  of  India,  209 
Ptolemy,  10,  28 
Punjab  Uuiversity,  109 

statistics,  217 

church,  232 

Puritans,  147 

Queen-Empkess  Victoria,  113 

Quetta,  144 
Quilon,  39 

Rae,  Dr.  M.,  26 

Rajagriha,  22 
Rajgarh,  120 

Rajpootana,  143,  191,  210 
Ramnad,  132 
Ramsay,  Sir  H.,  186 
Ravenstein,  Mr.  E.,  196 
Red  Indians,  127,  146,  149 
Rede  Lecture,  Maine's,  124 
Reed,  W.,  150 
Reformation  of  the  Church,  1 


INDEX 


257 


Reformation  Churches,  4 
Reformed      (Dutch)      Church     in 

America,  164 
Renwick  the  martyr,  148 
Revolution,  silent,  in  India,  227 
Ricci,  69 
Rice,  155 
Richards,  155 
Ripon,  Lord,  122 
Rites,  Malabar  and  Chinese,  67 
Robert  de  Nobilibus,  68 
Robinson  of  Leyden,  147 
Robson,  Dr.  John,  210,  220 
Roe,  SirT.,  89 
Rohilkhund,  143 
Roman  Empire,  1 

Church,  32,  38 

Rose,  General  Hugh,  142 
Rouse,  missionary,  188 
Rubruquis,  34 

Sadharan  Brahma  Somaj,  228 

Salbank,  89 

Salem,  10 

Salisbury,  Professor,  18 

San  Salvador,  45 

Santo  Stefano,  42 

Saracens,  32 

Sargent,  John,  149 

Satiyanadan,  131 

Schultze,  128 

Schwartz,  95,  100,  128 

Science  and  missions,  42,  103 

Scott,  T.,  105 

Scottish  missions,  130,  148,  149, 

189 

Church  Disruption,  130 

United  Presbyterian  Church, 

143 

Original  Secession  Church,  143 

Scudder  family,  132,  164 
Seelye,  Miss,  164 
Seleucia-Ctesiphon,  17 
Seleucus,  10,  16 
Sell,  Rev.  E.,  222 
Semedo,  A.,  19,  247 
Sen,  Kesbub  Chunder,  220 
Sepoys  and  Christianity,  117 
Serampore,  95,  135 
Serapeum,  13 
Seringham,  112 
Severus,  15 


Shariat  law,  222 

Shen-ah-rah-han,  154 

Sherring,  M.  A.,  136 

Shields,  M.,  148 

Shoolbred,  Dr.,  143 

Sialkot,  217 

Sikhs,  110,  118,  151,  201,  217 

Sikkim,  210 

Simeon,  Charles,  98 

Si-ngan-fu,  18 

Sirdhana,  73 

Slater,  F.  E.,  227 

Slave  trade,  45 

Smith,  R.  P.,  108 

Sydney,  108,  128 

Baird,  142 

Societies  working  in  India,  161 
Society  for  Propagation  of  Gospel, 

131,  161 
for       Promoting       Christian 

Knowledge,  131 

London  Missionary,  131,  161 

Church  Missionary,  131,  161 

Basel,  132,  162 

Sokotra,  11,  29,  37 
Solyman  the  Magnificent,  48 
Sooraj-ood-Dowlah,  93 
Southey,  128 
Squanto  the  Indian,  147 
States  of  India,  209 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  51,  57 

Sir  Fitz-James,  128 

Stokes,  Whitley,  123 

Stuart,  G.  H.,  159 

Sumatra,  77 

Sumner,  Archbishop,  236 

Surat,  39 

Syagros,  9 

Syed,  Amir  Ali,  222 

Syriac,  10,  24 

Syrian  Christians,  16,  26,  30 

Tae-tsung,  Emperor,  22 

Tamil  Bible,  128 

Tang  dynasty,  23 

Taugut,  35 

Taprobane,  28 

Tartars,  33 

Tavoy,  155 

Teignmouth,  Lord,  94,  108 

Telugu  country,  37 

Tennent,  Sir  E.,  76 


258 


THE  CONVERSION   OF  INDIA 


Terry,  Chaplain,  89 
Thana,  Four  Martyrs  of,  41 
Thanksgiving  for  the  progress   of 

the  gospel,  243 
Thebaid,  14 

Theodore  of  Antioch,  17 
Theodosian  Code,  110 
Theophilus  Indicus,  15 
Thibet,  210 
Thomas  the  Apostle,  26,  250 

John,  96 

Thomason,  J.,  109,  126 

Chaplain,  133 

Thomson,  Sir  R.,  157 

Thornton,  Henry,  107 

Timotheus  the  Nestorian,  18 

Tinnevelli,  10 

Tirumala,  68 

Toleration,  88,  110,  115,  110,  226 

Toscanelli,  43 

Tournon,  Cardinal,  70 

Towns  of  India,  209 

Townsend,  M.,  115 

Trade  winds,  9 

Tranquebar,  95 

Travankor,  210 

Trevelyan,  SL  C,  231 

Tucker,  R.  T.,  138 

Miss,  A.L.O.E.,  138 

Turanians,  17 
Tuticorin,  55 
Tweeddale,  Marquis  of,  109 


Udiampoor,  49 

Udny,  George,  96 

United  States  of  America,  3, 

115,  128,  145,  157,  240 
Universities  in  India,  109 

Vahl,  Dean,  198 
Valentyn,  80 
Valle,  70 
Vanderkemp,  77 
Van  Mekelenburg,  146 
Varthema,  L.,  42 
Vasco  da  Gama,  48 
Venice,  48 


84, 


Venn,  Henry,  52 

Victoria,  Queen  and  Empress,  113 

Vijayanagar,  42 

Villages  of  India,  209 

Vishnu  worship,  216 

Vizagapatam,  72 

Voltaire,  19,  69 

WALiSUS,  77 

Ward,  95,  180 

Washington,  George,  95 

Wellesley,  Marquis,  94 

Wenlock,  Lord,  157 

Wesley,  S.,  132 

Wesleyan  Missionary  Society,  132 

Whitefield,  149 

Wiclif,  5 

Wilberforce,  105 

William  III.,  85,  92 

William  of  Tripoli,  36 

Williams,  S.  W.,  24 

Dr.  Daniel,  149 

Dr.  A.,  23 

Williamson,  Dr.  A.,  23 
Wilson,  John,  109,  121,  137,  178, 
192 

H.  H.,  170 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  74 
Woman's  work  in  India,  205 
World,  population  and  area,  196 

religions,  197 

Wrangham,  F.,  Ill 
W^rede,  F.,  24 
WyUe,  A.,  19 
Macleod,  208,  210 

Xavier,  Francis,  49,  64,  154 
Jerome,  70 

Yemen,  13,  111 

Yule,  Sir  Henry,  4,  20,  36 

Yunan,  36 

Zanzibar,  11 
Zayton,  37 

Zeir-ed-deen  Mukhdom,  66 
Ziegenbalg,  95,  128,  173 
Zoroastrians  in  India,  201 


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thousand  will  find  their  way  to  the  religious  p»blic." — Weekly 
Review. 

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BY  MRS.  EUGENE  S.  WILLARD, 

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"  Being  a  close  observer  and  in  deep  sympathy  with  the 
native  population  in  their  struggles  towards  a  Christian  Civil- 
ization, Mrs.  Willard  has  gained  a  more  intelligent  knowl- 
edge of  their  character,  of  their  needs  and  hindrances,  than 
perhaps  any  other  person  ;  so  that  when  a  distinguished 
Committee  of  United  States  Senators  visited  Alaska  to  in- 

?|uire  into  the  condition  of  the  natives,  she  was  applied  to 
or  a  paper  on  the  subject,  and  her  paper  on  '  Needed  legis-    i 
lation  for  the  protection  of  Native  Children,'  was  the  most    \ 
discriminating,  faithful  and  abl^  one  received."— Z>r.  Sheldon    \ 
Jackso7i.  \ 

< 


PRESS  NOTICES. 
The  Living  Church : 

"  The  revelations  of  the  idolatry  and  customs  of  the  abori- 
gines are  unique,  and  therefore,  especially  entertaining  to  the 
student  of  human  nature." 
The  Congregationalist : 

"Possesses  permanent  value  as  a  faithful  and  comprehensive 
portrayal  of  the  social  and  moral  condition  of  the  natives,  and 
describes  them  picturesquely,  both  as  they  are  and  as  they 
have  been." 

The  New  York  Observer  : 

"The  longing  of  famished  souls  for  the  bread  of  life  is  told 
with  pathos,  and  prominence  is  given  to  the  success  of  mission- 
ary work  rather  than  to  its  terrible  isolation  and  varied  trials." 
The  Christian  Inquirer: 

"  A  vivid  picture  of  life  in  Alaska.    The  story  is  an  interest- 
ing one.  and  shou'd  prove  an  incentive  to  help  forward  the 
evangelization  of  that  Territory." 
Public  Opinion : 

_  "  From  beginning  to  end  the  book  holds  one's  closest  atten- 
tion.    Interesting  as  a  story  as  well  asjn  the  facts  presented." 
The  Christian  Intelligencer  : 

"The  story  is  pathetic  and  powerful,  because  true.  If  it  but 
arouse  the  country  and  the  Church  to  the  call  of  duty  and  of 
God,  it  well  accomplish  a  glorious  mission." 

For  sale  by  all  Booksellers^  or  sent.,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of 
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Glances  at  China. 

BY 

REV.  GILBERT  REID,  M.A., 

Of  the 

American  Presbyterian  Church, 

Chi-nan-fu. 

Profusely  Illustrated. 

i2mo.  Illuminated  Cloth  Covers.  80  Cents. 


The  author,  who  is  a  missionary  of  the  Presbyterian 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  U.S.A.,  has  had  unusual 
opportunities  for  ascertaining  the  true  condition  of  the 
Chinese.  That  he  has  made  good  use  of  these  opportunities, 
is  attested  by  the  very  num'^rous  commendatory  notices 
which  have  been  given  to  this  book  by  American,  English 
and  Chinese  papers.    A  few  of  these  are  appended. 


COMMENDATIONS. 
The  Spectator: 

"  Introduces  us  to  a  highly  interesting  subject.  .  .  .  On 
the  whole,  Mr.  Reid's  experiences,  have,  it  seems,  been  favour- 
able. He  found  the  Chinese  disposed  to  discuss  the  question 
of  Christianity  calmly  and  with  interest." 

The  North  China  Herald  and  Daily  News,  {Shangai)  : 

"This  prettily  bound  volume  of  191  pages  is,  for  its  size,  one 
of  the  best  books  on  China  we  have  seen  for  some  time.  .  .  . 
There  is  little  generahzation,  but  a  direct,  candid  record  of  the 
author's  own  experiences,  the  experiences  of  a  man  of  unusual 
common  sense  and  good  powers  of  observation." 

The  New  York  Evangelist: 

"  Shows  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  history,  life,  and 
customs  of  China,  and  conveys  just  the  information  the  reader 
wants.  The  author  has  the  happy  art  of  condensing  his  facts, 
and  he  gives  his  own  experiences  in  a  bright  and  graphic  way." 

The  Interior,  {Chicago) : 

"Very  informally  and  entertaingly  written,  abundantly  illus- 
trated, and  is  a  first-rate  book." 

For  sale  by  all  Booksellers^  or  sent,  postpaid,  on  receipt  0/ price 
by  the  publishers. 

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The  Fifth  Gospel 

The  Land  Where  Jesus  Lived 

BY 

J.    M.    P.    OTTS,    D.D.,    LL.D. 


Fully    Illustrated 

Cloth  Si 


This  book,  as  the  title  indicates,  is  a  care- 
ful study  of  the  four  written  Gospels  in  the 
lights  and  shades  of  the  land  where  Jesus 
lived  and  taught.  When  they  are  thus  stud- 
ied it  is  found  that  the  land  so  harmonizes 
with  them,  and  so  unfolds  and  elucidates 
their  meaning,  that  it  forms  around  them,  as  } 
it  were,  a  fifth  Gospel.  ^ 

,^ 

"  It  presents  a  vivid  picture  of  Bible  scenerj^  and 
a  safe  and  sound  thinker's  illumination  of  many 
Scripture  texts  by  the  hght  of  travel."— C^rzVif/aw 
Thought. 

"A  book  of  great  ability  and  vivacity  that  will 
arouse  much  interest  and  elicit  much  thoughtful 
discussion." — Christian  Observer. 

"A  charming  and  instructive  volume  that  ex- 
hibits keen  observation  and  critical  power."— /'r^ j-- 
byterian  Journal. 

"Whatever  other  books  one  may  have  read  on 
Palestine,  he  will  find  new  pleasure  and  instruc- 
tion from  the  perusal  of  this."— Q'^^'r^/  Presby- 
terian, 

"  This  book  is  really  inspiring."— Z'/^^.5fl///.s-/. 

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NEW  AND  CHEAPER  EDITION  ILLUSTEATED. 


JOHN  G.  PATON, 

MISSIONARY    TO     THE    NEW     HEBRIDES. 
AN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

EDITED  BY  HIS  BROTHER. 

With  an   Introduction  by  ARTHUR  T.  PIERSON,  D.D. 
Two  vols,  in  box,  i2mo,  cloth,  gilt  top  net  ^2,00. 


/ffiinfsterfal  Gommeniation, 

"  I  have  just  laid  down  the  most  robust  and  the  most 
fascinating  piece  of  autobiography  that  I  have  met 
with  in  many  a  day.  .  .  .  John  G.  Paton  was  made 
of  the  same  stuff  with  Livingstone." — Theodore  L. 
Cuyler,  D.D. 

'*  I  consider  it  unsurpassed  in  missionary  biography. 
In  the  whole  course  of  my  extensive  reading  on  these 
topics,  a  more  stimulating,  inspiring,  and  every  way 
first-class  book  has  not  fallen  into  my  hands.  Every- 
body ought  to  read  xK..'''— Arthur  T.  Fierson^  D.D. 
^t'ssionar^  Ipraisc. 

"  I  have  never  read  a  romance  that  was  half  so 
thrilling." — Lucius  C.  Smith.,  Giianajuato.,  Alexico. 

"  I  have  ne-er  read  a  more  inspiring  biography." — 
Thotnas  C.  JViftn,  Yokohama.,  J apa7i, 

"  The  Lord's  work  will  not  go  back  while  there  are 
such  men  as  he  in  the  c\vm:<z\i..'"—James  A.  Heal.,  Sing 
Kong,  Cheh  Kiang,  China. 

"  I  thh.k  I  have  never  had  greater  pleasure  in  read- 
ing any  book."— i?.  Thacksweli,  Dehra.,  North  In<Ua^ 
B^rc53  motices. 

"  Perhaps  the  most  important  addition  for  many 
years  to  the  library  of  missionary  literature  is  the  auto- 
biography of  John  G.  Paton. '  ^—  The  Christin n  A  dvocate. 

"  We  commend  to  all  who  w^ould  advance  the  caus» 
of  Foreign  Missions  this  remarkable  autobiography. 
It  stands  with  such  books  as  those  Dr  Livingstone 
gave  the  world,  and  shows  to  men  that  the  heroes  of 
the  cross  are  not  merely  to  be  sought  in  past  ages." 
—  The  Christian  Intelligencer. 


Fleming    H.   Revell    Company, 

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jects about  which  they  severally  treat."—  The  A  thenceum. 


1.  Cleopatra's  Needle.    By  the  Rev.  J.  King.    With  Illustra- 

tions   I.OO 

2.  Fresh  Light  from  the  Ancient  Monuments.     By  A.  H. 

Sayce,  LL.D,     With  Facsimiles  from  Photographs .  1.20 

3.  Recent  Discoveries  on  the  Temple  Hill  ctJerusalen.  By 

the  Rev.  J.  King,  M.A.    With  Ma;  s,  Plans  and  Illustra- 
tions   1.00 

4„  Babylonian  Life  and  History.  ByE.A.Walli  Budge,  M.A, 
Illustrated 1.20 

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With  a  Map i.oo 

6.  Egypt  and  Syria.    By  Sir  J.  W.  Dawson,  F.G.S.,  F.R.S. 

Second  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged.    With  many  Illus- 
trations   1.20 

7.  Assyria  :    its  Princes,  Priests,  and  People.      By  A.  H. 

Sayce,  M.A.,  LL.D.     Fully  Illustrated 1.20 

8.  The  :  "wellers  on  the  Nile.     By  E.  A.  V/alHs  Budge,  M.A. 

Fully  Illustrated 1.20 

9.  The  Diseases  on  the  Bible.  By  Sir  J.  Risdon  Bennett.,  i.oo 

10.  The  Trees  and  Plants  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  By  W.  H. 

Grosser,  B.Sc.    Illustrated 1.20 

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A.  H.  Sayce,  LL.D.    Illustrated i.oo 

13.  The  Times  of  Isaiah.    By  A.  H.  Sayce,  LL.D 80 

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the  late  J.  T.  Wood,  F.S.    .     Fully  Illustrated i.oo 

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By  Rev.  H.  G.  Tomkins,  M.A i.oo 

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facsimiles.     i2mo.,  cloth 1.20 

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1  The  World  Before  the  Flood,  and  History  of  the 

Patriarchs. 

2  The  Exodus  and  Wanderings  in  the  Wilderness. 

3  Israel  in  Canaan  Under  Joshua  and  the  Judges. 

4  Israel  Under  Samuel,  Saul  and  David,  to  the  Birth 

of  Solomon. 

5  Israel  and  Judah  from  the  Birth  of  Solomon  to 

the  Reign  of  Ahab. 

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Kingdoms  to  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
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They  are  ^re-eminently  suggestive  hooks.  They  excite  in- 
ieresty  they  stitnulate  inquiyy,  and  they  point  the  way  to  fields 
of  thought  that  are  entirely  7!eiu.  or  to  old  fields  that  shine  in 
neiu  richness  and  beauty  firo7n  the  light  that  is  thrown  tipon 
them.  There  is  abundance  of  material  fior  attractive  and 
profitable  sermons  in  the  histories  and  the  personal  sketches 
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The  Presbyterian. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  author  was  qualified  in  a  very 
remarkable  way  to  prepare  such  a  history  as  this.  .  .  . 
Dr.  Edersheim's  intimate  familiarity  with  Jewish  life  and 
modes  of  thought,  and  his  ability  to  say  so  well  what  he 
knows,  enable  him  to  paint  with  great,  vividness  and  dis- 
tinctness the  scenes  he  describes  and  the  events  which  he 
narrates.  .  .  We  heartily  recommend  it  to  our  readers." 
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Joseph :  Beloved,  Hated,  Exalted. 

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Moral  Muscle  and  How  to  Use  It.    A  Brother- 
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and  proclaims  the  gospel  of  industry,  perseverance,  self- 
control,  and  manly  Q\ix\'s,\Xi.vc\.\.Y.^''— St.  Andrew's  Cross. 

First  Battles  and  How  to  Fight  Them.  Some 
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Brave  and  True.     Talks  to  Young  Men.     By 
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The  Spiritual  Athlete  and  How  He  Trains. 

By  W.  A.  Bodell.     Introduction  by  Rev.  B. 

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Turn  Over  a  New  Leaf,  and  Other  Words  to 

Young  People  at  School.  By  B.  B.  Comegys. 

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